Telling from Birds Toll

And so Houston tragically, perhaps inevitably, joins the so-called ‘48 Club’ alongside the likes of Tom Fogerty, Wendy O. Williams and Her Out The Shangri-Las.

Or not. Whitney Houston was spared the indignity of rolling news desperately contriving a soundbite to sell her death - “Etta James, the voice of Diet Coke, is dead” - on account of the simple facts being so easily digestible: only artist to score seven consecutive No.1s on the Billboard Hot 100, goddaughter of Aretha, cousin of Dionne, most influential singer of her generation - hey, this stuff writes itself!  

And so it did. Unfortunately, no one on television news desks noticed that autopilot was beginning to overreach itself, that “an unprecedented ability to shift records” was being translated into “the greatest singer of all time”. Which is a bit silly, really - it might be the world’s biggest ever seller, but no one will lament the passing of “the greatest car of all time” when the last Toyota Corolla finally rolls off the production line.

It’s understandable enough, of course. An hour ago you announced her death, the biggest showbiz story of the year, and so this hour you need to raise the stakes a little. But we’re a week on now. So, in the cold light of day, let’s begin appraising things a little more clearheadedly. Let’s admit that, if we’re honest, greatest singers of all time tend not to approach songs with all the empathy of an articulated lorry approaching a hedgehog. Sure, onlookers are treated to a Technicolor spectacular, but something is lost along the way.

Thus, her take on Dolly Parton’s I Will Always Love You. Take a moment to recite the lyric in your head. Has ever a piece of popular verse been more deserving of the epithet ‘love song’? ‘Love’ as in selfless regard for another, a heartbroken protagonist realising there’ll be more suitable partners for their beloved further down the line, and so exiting stage left to leave the way clear. It is, to say the least, a melancholic state of affairs. And like Nick Cave said in The Secret Life of the Love Song, “Melancholy hates haste and floats in silence. It must be handled with care.” Accordingly, Parton’s reading of the song is dignified, restrained, a handwritten note quietly pushed under the back door.

By contrast, Houston alerts all local news stations of her paramour’s address, lands a gold-plated helicopter on his front lawn, stops and poses for pictures, has a quick “No, don’t talk me out of it, I have to go through with this!” session with a shrink on the driveway, blinks back tears in a to-camera piece about ‘My journey’, briefly consults her full-time mascara assistant, knocks on the door, and hands over a giant factory-written Hallmark card when it opens. Meanwhile, melancholy lies bleeding somewhere in an adjacent block, having crashed to earth when its quiet floating was cut to shreds by rotor blades. Poor bastard. It never stood a chance.

By any reasonable reckoning, in judging a great singer - as opposed to a technically great voice - we must factor in the ability to interpret a lyric. And alas, though it would be apt - and mean the world a more beautiful place - her version of I Will Always Love You is not frequently listed in the Top Ten Songs By Which To Exit Divorce Courts. Instead, with all the appropriateness of coffins taking their curtain call to Walking on Sunshine, newly married couples walk down the aisle to it every week. Somewhere, in all the showboating of vowel stretching time, the essence of the song has been so utterly lost that down means up and left means right. Which makes Whitney Houston the very definition of style over substance.

Extraordinary style, granted, that uniquely spectacular voice an instrument of peerless range and precision; no doubt, she could - should - have been one of the greatest singers of all time; could have imbued that belt, Etta style, with real feeling; could have cut out all the vocal histrionics by sitting down with a producer who’d play Olivier to her Dustin Hoffman - “Why don’t you just sing, dear girl?” - and really test herself. Instead, to return to the motoring analogy, she was like an F1 car eschewing being pushed to the limit on the track in favour of the cheap applause that comes from issuing smoke-billowing spins in closed-off city centres.

And that, as X Factor auditions remind us every year, is her legacy. Why go to the effort of getting to the heart of a song when you can perform a nifty bypass with emotional shorthand? Pick a syllable, any syllable from any word - just be sure not to miss any “I”s or “You”s - and run it up and down the breadth of your range. Repeat to fade, et voila! Meaningful singing. Everybody says so! Keep practicing and you might, just might, catch the ear of Simon Cowell. A man who, with unusual candour, professed himself moved to tears by Houston’s death. “She was a legend,” he said. “These people don’t come around often. No one could sell a song like Whitney.”