sosgemini said:

Drugs or no drugs, she has the best of any female recording artist in history, which I think is what Clive Davis is banking on.
I look forward to her album as I have looked forward to her albums in the past.
What one does outside a studio is of no consequence to me.

dseann said:

I don`t think her CAREER is based on her personal problems, her career now is based on her legacy, everything she has achieved, everything that made her a legend. I think that when people hear the name Whitney Houston, they think of songs like "I will always love you" and "Greatest love of all", not just some crazy story they read in a magazine.

I`m looking forward to the new album too, i loved "Just Whitney" and "One wish", and i`m sure the new album will be great

Icicle said:

please note that i did say, "at this point"...and i honestly dont think folks think of her past successes when her name is mentioned...they think, "crack-head"...

but im not bashing the lady...im hopeful that she will walk away from her drug addiction and come out of it a stronger woman...

but until she cleans up, im not going to white-wash her situation...she is a drug addict and needs to hear that as much as possible...hopefully she has people around her who care enough about her to realize that working on an album is not the solutions to her problem...the solution is sobriety.

[quote]

Icicle said:

Well, I didn't mention the drugs. She was a joke to me long before the drugs came in the picture.

sosgemini said:

Agreed!

I'm just not excited about this project at all.Her last CD 'Just Whitney' was garbage and unfortunately,her personal problems will likely overshadow any new music she releases.She's where Michael Jackson is right now...getting more attention for everything but the music.She could possibly make a comeback sometime in the future,but I don't see it happening anytime soon.

Nick715 said:

merry crystal methmess!

yeahhhh!

.
.
[Edited 9/5/06 4:15am]

ABeautifulOne said:

And very unfortunate.Song royalties is where the real money is.Artists who write or co-write their own lyrics continue to make money long after their heyday.

silverchild said:

Lil John?? If those are the producers involved,I definitely won't be buying this album.I'm sick of predictable,by-the-numbers R&B albums with tunes "produced" by non-musicians who only know how to program beats.Out of that list,the only appropriate producer is Babyface.

SoulAlive said:

When did Whitney start having financial problems?
If she can't write then she's better off having someone else write her material.
It works for Dr. Dre and Puffy or P. Diddy or Diddy or whatever it calls itself these days.

dseann said:

As recently as last year.That's what I heard,anyway.It's not unlikely,since she hasn't had any hits in awhile.

SoulAlive said:

It's like they're afraid to step out of the box and try someone new or under the radar. God bless Whitney but I don't want to hear her sounding like all the basic R&B that's out there now with songs that could be given to MJB, Toni, Faith Evans, Brandy, Monica, Fantasia, Beyonce, etc or any other singer.

JackieBlue said:

Agreed! Record companies are insane...pairing a REAL SINGER with someone like Lil John?? Do we really wanna hear her singing on top of a noisy,tuneless,synth-heavy "crunk" song? That makes absolutely no sense.What next....pair her up with the Ying Yang Twins? Have her whispering all over a song? and since she is still on drugs,she won't object to any of this.She'll be like "yeah,Clive,call up Snoop and Dre,I gotta work with them too" I'm sorry,but Whitney is not hip-hop.

SoulAlive said:

Scary but true!

SoulAlive said:

You obviusly haven't heard Heather Headley's combo with Lil Jon on her last cd.The song sounds nothing like crunk, you'd be surprised Jon produced the song from the way it sounds because it's a left turn from what he usually does...

Does she still LOOK like a stick figurine?
Wasnt her voice shot to hell last time she performed?

ABeautifulOne said:

Well, nor did Elvis and look how he is hailed has some kind of Messiah. Regardless of whether she writes her music or not her real talent has always lied with her voice, which is probably now ruined due to drugs.

The Bodyguard soundtrack went Platinum 17 times!!! Good Lord. The whole Bin Laden obsession WTF!!! I just read the wikipedia Bio. on her. WOW!

america loves a comeback... all she has to do is put together a decent album, get on Oprah and act like a normal human being and speak frankly about how she's straightened herself out, and prove she can still sing... and she'll be back on top faster than you can say "mimi".

now... getting all those things to happen is the hard part

SoulAlive said:

Honey you heard wrong.
She doesn't have financial problems, drug problems.....now that's another issue.

In fact I think her finances contributes to her drug problems.
She doesn't have to steal, lie or sell herself for it, and she has places to hide away and do whatever sher wants to do whenever.

She doesn't spend her money on hugh houses in five countries or elaborate jewelry like other people in her position, so compared to what she has she's pretty conservative with her dough, like I said in my previous posts, she was paid $100,000,000.00 to sit on her ass seven or eight years ago.

Even with bailing Bobby out of jail and paying his delinquent taxes she'd die of an overdose before she went broke.

Not having hits for some years doesn't make a diva of her accomplishments broke. This lady was making big money in the industry when making big money wasn't as easy as it is these days.

NorthernLad said:

I used to think that she could make a Natalie Cole-styled comeback,but the difference is,Natalie was sincere and serious about kicking her habit.She went to rehab for awhile,then appeared on the talk shows,speaking honesty about what she went through.The public could see that she had truly gotten herself together and everybody was rooting for her.So far,Whitney is not there yet.She has a long way to go.She's been in rehab a few times but apparently,she never stays long enough.Until she becomes 100% focused on battling her problem,she won't make any kind of comeback.

I say we give her more drugs and hook her up with some songwriters, producers, and a band that can give her a hardcore funky sound. Since she was the killer of funk and anything hardcore or rebellious in the mid 1980s with her squeaky clean, drug free, virgin image and music that even the most stuck up parents would approve of, maybe she could bring it back now.

She's on drugs now and no longer acting like the little precious goodie two shoes princess she used to act like. Since she's on drugs, she needs to start making music like other drug users have made in the past, either hard and funky, or hard rock. Dress her in some slutty clothes and let her throwdown. Just don't let her dance.

dseann said:

I guess you missed the big article that was posted here last year.It's from Fox News and was titled "Whitney's broke and on the run".Google it,or maybe someone can post a link? I don't know how much of it is accurate,but it certainly shows that all is not well in her camp.One of the things it pointed out is that,her 100 million record deal is not all it's cracked up to be...meaning,they didn't just "hand her" all that money.

SoulAlive said:

I agree - that's what it will take for her to come back, but I think that she can do it - IF she can clean herself up.

I remember that Broke and on the Run article and I also recall hearing about Whitney having money problems from a few years ago but it wasn't big deal like now. Apparently she has taken out several mortgages on her home over the last ten years or so and that may be an indicator that something is amiss financially.

Whitney: She’s Broke, and On the Run
Thursday , March 30, 2006
By Roger Friedman

Whitney: She’s Broke, and On the Run

Troubled pop superstar Whitney Houston — once a bigger seller than Madonna — is running out of cash. Insiders tell me she is literally broke, with no current income and huge expenses.

Not only that: Whitney’s life is such a dismal mess that, according to sources, her daughter, Bobbi Kristina, is living with Whitney’s brother Gary and sister-in-law, Pat, close to Houston’s home in Atlanta.

And it just keeps getting worse: A local Atlanta lawyer told me yesterday that he recently had housemates Whitney and ‘80s pop star Cherelle (real name Cheryl Week Norton) evicted from the luxury townhouse he’d rented to the latter last fall. Houston’s name was not on the lease, but the landlord says she was living there and has witnesses to back him up.

Now the landlord says he’s about to sue both women for about $17,000 in back rent and about $8,000 in damages for the mess they left behind. That includes carpets and furniture ruined by burn marks and broken windows. The papers will be filed shortly, he tells me.

When the landlord went to speak to Houston about the noise and filth emanating from the townhouse, he told me the singer appeared “disheveled” and her voice was gravelly. On the plus side: “She was very pleasant.”

Houston still owns a beautiful home in suburban Atlanta, but moved in with Cherelle at least temporarily last fall.

Houston and Norton, according to my sources, abandoned the befouled townhouse and moved to the Atlanta neighborhood of Buckhead. She has since returned to her Alpharetta home, where husband Bobby Brown has also alighted after having been last seen partying in Los Angeles.

There, Brown told friends alternately that Houston was pregnant and that they were divorcing.

Sometimes -- let’s face it -- we have fun tweaking the stars. But that’s not the case with Whitney Houston.

I’ve known her well since 1989. She was once a beautiful girl with the greatest voice in the world and an unlimited future. What’s happened to her in the last few years is the worst kind of show business tragedy. Friends of hers tell me they fear for her life. This is a monumental disaster for which no one wants to take responsibility.

It doesn’t help that this week, Whitney was sold out by her sister-in-law, Tina Brown (not to be confused with the journalist Tina Brown). Tina’s brother is Houston’s often-arrested and imprisoned former pop star husband Bobby.

Tina sold the most salacious stories she could muster to "The National Enquirer" and the "UK Sun" tabloid, along with pictures that suggest a horrifying saga of Whitney’s drug abuse. Her take could be as high as $200,000. There has been some suggestion that Brown, needing cash, put her up to it.

Ironies abound: First, Whitney entered rehab one year ago. Obviously, it didn’t work. And second, sources say that Whitney took care of Tina Brown’s children, said to be six in total, while she was in rehab herself.

Even at her worst, Houston, friends say, has tried to keep her husband’s relatives happy.

“There are 30 members of the Brown family,” says an insider, “and they’ve all sponged off of Whitney.”

That’s the problem. Generous to a fault, Houston has now managed to spend most of her earnings taking care of her own family and Brown’s. She has two main assets: a five-acre estate in posh Mendham, N.J., assessed in 2005, according to public records, at $5.6 million.

In 2003, she also purchased a large home in Alpharetta for $1.8 million, almost all of which was borrowed.

“There’s no money,” says an insider. “She’s really broke.”

The Mendham property has become to Houston what Neverland is to Michael Jackson: a bank account against which she can draw loans. Unlike Jackson, however, Houston does not have investments like the Beatles catalog to fall back on now that she’s in trouble.

Public records show Whitney has borrowed millions of dollars and taken out many staggering mortgages in her time — enough to give Michael Jackson a run for his money.

The original Mendham home, records show, was bought in 1987 for $2.2 million; Houston borrowed $1.4 million to pay for it.

In 1998, as part of a refinancing plan, she took a $6.45 million mortgage that involved buying a second home in Mendham around the corner from the first.

It also appears that she bought a condominium in North Bergen, N.J., simultaneously with a $3.4 million mortgage.

In May 2003, Houston obtained a $2 million, 15-year mortgage against the Mendham house. At the same time, records show she also took out a second equity loan against the same property for $500,000. Three months later, there’s a new $700,000 mortgage for a different property.

Houston’s financial problems are simple, and they were easy to predict. She is a singer, not a songwriter. Unlike Celine Dion, Mariah Carey and Madonna, Houston does not write her own material. Or, to be more exact, she never attached her name to her hits and took a cut of the publishing. She has only five song credits on ASCAP’s Web site.

This is rare among modern singers: Almost all of them including Barbra Streisand, were smart enough to write some hits of their own. And if they didn’t, like Bette Midler and Cher, they made their stage show a central source of income. One reason Mariah Carey has not had to tour extensively is that she has her name on dozens of hits.

It’s kind of surprising that Houston fell into this trap. She’s watched both her mother, Cissy Houston, and cousin, Dionne Warwick, neither of whom wrote their own hits, tour endlessly every year and work to keep up with their expenses. You’d think she would have learned something from their experiences.

What’s evident is that through the years, Houston has had inadequate advice and counsel. Depending on just record sales to get her through bad times was a mistake.

While Houston had many bestsellers, they are well in the past. Simply singing a hit record is not enough if you’re not going to save your money.

The real profit in the music business comes from touring and publishing. Houston has toured very little in her career. And with no songs on her resume, she has no perennial moneymakers on which to rely, like Carey’s “Vision of Love” and Madonna’s “Like A Virgin.”

So Whitney, with dozens of dependents and no income, is indeed broke. News reports claimed she got a $100 million recording contract from Arista Records in 2001. In reality, she received a $20 million advance. Take half off from taxes, it’s $10 million. Another $2 million might come off in fees. Then deduct the costs of her 2002 flop album, “Just Whitney” — which sold just 540,000 copies — and her 2004 Christmas album, now ranked on Amazon.com at 68,000. Suddenly, it’s not so much.

And that doesn’t take into account her notorious lifestyle. And I’m not talking about the first-class airfare, the nice cars, clothes or jewelry. Houston has frittered away millions of dollars living on the edge and being irresponsible.

Had she not entered into a spiraling down world of drug addiction, and kept recording and touring, she would be —at age 42 — a very wealthy woman with a reputation as the best singer of her generation. That none of that has come to pass is shameful.

Houston’s next big problem is going to be with Child Protective Services in Alpharetta. Even though Bobbi Kristina lives away from home, there will no doubt be a new investigation based on the "Enquirer" story.

If 50 percent of the report is deemed true, Houston and Brown could easily lose their daughter for good. One wonders if that will be enough of a wake-up call for the singer who once represented the best of America’s youth.

SoulAlive said:

God, I think I'm in love!!

Seriously, finally someone who gets it. I completely agree with your thoughts on this new cd. Whitney should stay the hell away from these people and make a real record with real singing and real instruments.

JackieBlue said:

That's why I have zero sympathy for Whitney or any famous person(actor, athlete, comedian, whatever), who pi$$es away their talent with self-destructive behavior. They have a special gift average folks like us can only dream about. Shame on them for throwing it all away and not watching their money!!! If you don't care about yourself, why the f--- should I?

It seems there's an unwritten law...when you get famous, you lose all common sense.

uPtoWnNY said:[quote]

JackieBlue said:

nahh...theres many grown folks who do just fine...we just dont hear about them...think of all them beautiful "living legands" that oprah hosted...all strong, beautiful, talented and for the most part wealthy.

but they make boring news...so we cling to the crazy ones.

SoulAlive said:

I stand corrected.