What do you do when you get a call to work with soul music's most respected female vocalist of the last 13 years? Fugees members Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean offer the only valid answers. Their contributions "I Was Made To Love Him" and "My Love Is Your Love," respectively, are the only songs on Houston's new album that show the world why this Supreme Diva is considered as such.
Hill captures Mrs. Bobby Brown's gritty, funky essence in an infectious Stevie Wonder-styled jam complete with harmonicas and 'heeeey...yea...yea' background vocals. Jean and partner Jerry "Wonder" Duplessis also cast Houston in Stevie's light, though with a touch of reggae, to produce the moving title track. In the song's opening line Houston sings, "If tomorrow is judgement day/and I'm standing on the frontline/and the Lord asks me what I did with my life/I will say I spent it with you." Sorry Dianne Warren, Babyface, and the guy who wrote "When You Believe" for The Prince Of Egypt soundtrack: Wyclef and Jerry will be raking in the royalties when advertising companies begin fighting over this one to sell their clients' cars.
But production from hit makers Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott, David Foster, and Rodney Jerkins simply present Whitney singing about heartache in 1998's standard R&B fashion. While the overall result is still good, one can't help but wonder how great the album would have been with more contributions from Lauryn or Wyclef (Missy, Babyface, and Rodney all produced three songs each). And, by the way, how did Brian McKnight get overlooked?
Every time I listen to Oasis, I have a hard time getting the image of the Bros. Gallagher drunkenly beating the living clay out of each other on Celebrity Death Match out of my mind. Yep, these boys are wankers, tosspots, and living, puking proof that being a Rock Star is a backdated, stupid, and useless idea, but they still manage to generally operate on an accomplished enough level that even collections of B-side detritus like this one may be classified without reservation as pretty damn fine. O.K., so thereΓÇÖs nothing quite in the "Live Forever" pantheon here (one of the best songs of the last decade, that), but meaty 'toons like "Acquiesce," "Going Nowhere," "Half The World Away," and "Stay Young" deliver the anthemic goods. Even slop like the soundcheck jam "The Swamp Song" and that perennial encore "I Am The Walrus" skates by dint of sheer musculature. Sure, Liam and Noel are arrogant slobs and thieves to boot, but they steal from the best, and they know the road to Rockville.
Every time I listen to Oasis, I have a hard time getting the image of the Bros. Gallagher drunkenly beating the living clay out of each other on Celebrity Death Match out of my mind. Yep, these boys are wankers, tosspots, and living, puking proof that being a Rock Star is a backdated, stupid, and useless idea, but they still manage to generally operate on an accomplished enough level that even collections of B-side detritus like this one may be classified without reservation as pretty damn fine. O.K., so thereΓÇÖs nothing quite in the "Live Forever" pantheon here (one of the best songs of the last decade, that), but meaty 'toons like "Acquiesce," "Going Nowhere," "Half The World Away," and "Stay Young" deliver the anthemic goods. Even slop like the soundcheck jam "The Swamp Song" and that perennial encore "I Am The Walrus" skates by dint of sheer musculature. Sure, Liam and Noel are arrogant slobs and thieves to boot, but they steal from the best, and they know the road to Rockville.
