The lead single "I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)" was released May 2, 1987 one month ahead of the album.

Whitney debuted at number one on the US Billboard Top 200 Album chart, the first female to do it. Then she stayed on top for eleven weeks, another first.

The album spawned five number one singles (a first for a female artist);
-"I Wanna Dance With Somebody" PRODUCED BY NARADA MICHAEL WALDEN
-"Didn't We Almost Have It All" PRODUCED BY MICHAEL MASSER
-"So Emotional" PRODUCED BY JELLYBEAN BENITEZ
-"Where Do Broken Hearts Go" PRODUCED BY NARADA MICHAEL WALDEN

The album also contained the top ten hit "Love Will Save The Day" featuring Roy Ayers and produced by Jellybean Benitez.

My household had the 45 single for "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" ahead of the album. The cool thing is the picture is the same as the album cover but zoomed out so you can see her jeans.

I just loved dancing to it and I loved the part in the video with the two guys in towels around their hips emerging from the saloon-style change room doors.

SantanaMaitreya said:

They really could not have thought of a better title than that?

You mean like:

Prince - Prince

Madonna - Madonna

Janet Jackson - janet., damita jo

Mariah Carey - Mariah Carey

John Cougar - John Cougar

Earth Wind & Fire - Earth Wind & Fire

Journey - Journey

David Bowie - David Bowie, David Bowie

Def Leppard - Def Leppard

Peter Gabriel - Peter Gabriel, Peter Gabriel, Peter Gabriel, Peter Gabriel

Motley Crue - Motley Crue

Funkadelic - Funkadelica

Jill Jones - Jill Jones

The Family - The Family

The Time - The Time

Vanity 6 - Vanity 6

Apollonia 6 - Apollonia 6

Britney Spears - Britney, Britney Jean

Christina Aguilera - Christina Aguilera

Aretha Franklin - Aretha, Aretha

Patti LaBelle - Patti LaBelle, Patti

SantanaMaitreya said:

Yeah, I was about to start a thread called Boring Album Titles!

Especially as the album prior was titled Whitney Houston.

Cinny said:

SantanaMaitreya said:

Yeah, I was about to start a thread called Boring Album Titles!

Especially as the album prior was titled Whitney Houston.

P'zackly! Plus Just Whitney and Love Whitney. It's like "we get it girl. Your name is Whitney."

Cinny said:

SantanaMaitreya said:

Cinny said:

Especially as the album prior was titled Whitney Houston.

Yes and that's why I made these comments. I remember reading a review where the writer wondered: what's the next one gonna be called? Houston? Having said all of that, I Wanna Dance With Somebody was HUGE! It was # 1 in Holland for 14 weeks or so. And if you watch the video now it looks so amateurish and cute.

Here, too. It's the only song of hers my local radio plays now.

I Wanna Dance With Somebody was massive. It's the only song by her I'd play, and it still holds a very special place in my heart.

CAUTION TALE: The Whitney album is also responsible for why AND how some of Whitney's black audience booed the hell out of her at the now infamous 1988 Soul Train Music Awards.

In fairness, like I once told ex-org Vainandy [a notorious Whitney-hater!] years ago , all blame goes to record exec & Whitney mentor, Clive Davis. This dude wanted to make Whitney Houston a mainstream pop success so bad that he turn the poor woman into a chocolate cover valley girl!

[Edited 6/6/20 7:52am]

Cinny said:

My household had the 45 single for "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" ahead of the album. The cool thing is the picture is the same as the album cover but zoomed out so you can see her jeans.

I just loved dancing to it and I loved the part in the video with the two guys in towels around their hips emerging from the saloon-style change room doors.

If we're taking the best of 1980's dance-pop, I Wanna Dance With Somebody & So Emotional are classics.

Cinny said:

SantanaMaitreya said:

Cinny said: Yes and that's why I made these comments. I remember reading a review where the writer wondered: what's the next one gonna be called? Houston? Having said all of that, I Wanna Dance With Somebody was HUGE! It was # 1 in Holland for 14 weeks or so. And if you watch the video now it looks so amateurish and cute.

Here, too. It's the only song of hers my local radio plays now.

Eventually you won't even hear that like you never hear Luther Vandross any more...

TonyVanDam said:

TonyVanDam said:

alphastreet said:

TonyVanDam said:

If we're taking the best of 1980's dance-pop, I Wanna Dance With Somebody & So Emotional are classics.

I agree, I wanna dance with somebody is still very popular and a staple on the radio and at nightclubs here

Whitney was huge in the late 80s... But then so was Luther Vandross...

I still don't understand why there was so much backlash from her black audience with this album? Dioone Warwick and Diana Ross recorded many Soul-less albums and never received the same reaction from black music consumers.

kitbradley said:

I still don't understand why there was so much backlash from her black audience with this album? Dioone Warwick and Diana Ross recorded many Soul-less albums and never received the same reaction from black music consumers.

While the Whitney Houston album was clearly a winner of an album, it was more pop than soul. And Whitney suffered from that late 80s pastiche (a la Taylor Dayne). It feels like I'm Your Baby Tonight sorta fell into that same category. Plus they replaced the title track of IYMT with that stupid ass remix that gentrified the shit out of it.

So, has Whitney really had a great soulful album? I'm not quite as familiar with her later catalog. I know songs here and there, but I really lost interest in her music because frankly - it was boring. I hated the album versions of "Heartbreak Hotel" and "It's Not Right (But It's Okay)," but the remixes were a bop.

None of that is about her voice as a gift. It's about the production, the producers, the songs, the overall aesthetic of her records.

TheFman said:

I Wanna Dance With Somebody was massive. It's the only song by her I'd play, and it still holds a very special place in my heart.

(not the only song though!!!! )

TonyVanDam said:

CAUTION TALE: The Whitney album is also responsible for why AND how some of Whitney's black audience booed the hell out of her at the now infamous 1988 Soul Train Music Awards.

In fairness, like I once told ex-org Vainandy [a notorious Whitney-hater!] years ago , all blame goes to record exec & Whitney mentor, Clive Davis. This dude wanted to make Whitney Houston a mainstream pop success so bad that he turn the poor woman into a chocolate cover valley girl!

[Edited 6/6/20 7:52am]

The blame goes to the public, that says your skin color determines what kind of music you should make.

nextedition said:

TonyVanDam said:

CAUTION TALE: The Whitney album is also responsible for why AND how some of Whitney's black audience booed the hell out of her at the now infamous 1988 Soul Train Music Awards.

In fairness, like I once told ex-org Vainandy [a notorious Whitney-hater!] years ago , all blame goes to record exec & Whitney mentor, Clive Davis. This dude wanted to make Whitney Houston a mainstream pop success so bad that he turn the poor woman into a chocolate cover valley girl!

[Edited 6/6/20 7:52am]

The blame goes to the public, that says your skin color determines what kind of music you should make.

Oh preach to the choir.

TrivialPursuit said:

So, has Whitney really had a great soulful album?

When Whitney turned in her first record, Clive told her to rerecord it because she sounded too black.

lool said:

TrivialPursuit said:

So, has Whitney really had a great soulful album?

When Whitney turned in her first record, Clive told her to rerecord it because she sounded too black.

if that's true, that's equally horrible and understandable. Clive is a white man who - to his credit - knows music. In the 80s, artists still had the "Black" charts to look forward to, and those charts were made by a niche audience; at least that what record companies thought. (We know better, of course since Prince spanned all charts.) To play white man devil advocate, I can see Davis wanting to pop-ify her album to make it more accessible since radio was still so segregated (yes, even in the 80s to a great extent). But to be reasonable, she could have stuck to her guns and let the pieces fall where they would fall.

One short coming of Nip is that she wasn't a songwriter. She could sing the fuck out of anything, but she didn't really sit and write music. I don't know if she didn't have it in her, or if she was just lazy and let producers whittle down songs for her to choose from and work with. It's sorta the vibe I get from Christina Aguilera when she talked about telling producers "show me things, give me songs," but then talked about how this song was personal to her or she wrote that one for such'n'such reasons.

I've never delved into the deets on Nip's records to see who wrote what, but the few times I noticed names, hers wasn't on the publishing.

TrivialPursuit said:

lool said:

When Whitney turned in her first record, Clive told her to rerecord it because she sounded too black.

if that's true, that's equally horrible and understandable. Clive is a white man who - to his credit - knows music. In the 80s, artists still had the "Black" charts to look forward to, and those charts were made by a niche audience; at least that what record companies thought. (We know better, of course since Prince spanned all charts.) To play white man devil advocate, I can see Davis wanting to pop-ify her album to make it more accessible since radio was still so segregated (yes, even in the 80s to a great extent). But to be reasonable, she could have stuck to her guns and let the pieces fall where they would fall.

I think his strategy was to have her go pop and hopefully be embraced by black radio as well, which made sense in the mid eighties where everything was digital and smooth, thanks to the same black producers Whitney employed: Kashif and Narada Michael Walden.

I think the backlash came with the emergence of the more rhythmic New Jack Swing sound which of course was adopted earliest by black listeners. No wonder she was attracted to Bobby Brown and sealed it the night in 1989 she was booed to the video clip of "Where Do Broken Hearts Go" which had already aged poorly.

Jermaine Dupri realized he was doing something younger and newer with production when Whitney was not able to follow his direction.

Cinny said:

I think the backlash came with the emergence of the more rhythmic New Jack Swing sound which of course was adopted earliest by black listeners. No wonder she was attracted to Bobby Brown and sealed it the night in 1989 she was booed to the video clip of "Where Do Broken Hearts Go" which had already aged poorly.

Let's just be clear: Bobby pursued her for a long time before she barely even talked to him. A genre doesn't unite two people into a drug-fueled marriage.

I don't remember the booing anywhere.

I like "Where do Broken Hearts Go." To me, it's a more classic Whitney-esque song.

TrivialPursuit said:

I don't remember the booing anywhere.

HERE. The same night she returned his advances. I know it wasn't a genre that brought them together, but part of her attraction was Bobby's successes.

Cinny said:

TrivialPursuit said:

I don't remember the booing anywhere.

HERE. The same night she returned his advances. I know it wasn't a genre that brought them together, but part of her attraction was Bobby's successes.

Daaamn with the booing! haha