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New Bubbatunes - Diva 3

bub73 Whitney Houston – Call Me Nippy (February 20, 2007)
I’m sure the biggest question is where the title for this delve into the balladry of that high-octane diva came from – well it wasn’t me. From the time she was but a little model running around her house, everyone (including cousin Dionne Warwick & Auntie Aretha Franklin) called little Whitney, “Nippy.” Since those days, the Whit has even named her production company Nippy Inc. So hey if that’s what makes the crack ho feel comfortable then who am I to judge. Okay, that was pretty harsh but kind of funny. And before we actually get into her music let me just say that though her life was on quite a tragic spiral I kind of liked the wacky Whitney, it made her seem a little more human I think. Of course she wasn’t as great as the whacked out Mariah who only became interesting to me at all when she was all out of control. For Whitney I think all of us really wanted to see her get better and it seems with her impending divorce we may get the wish.

The problem when these divas hit bottom is they always insist on staging some kind of come back to prove they are still wonderful. It becomes quite apparent that they are not. In the midst of Mariah’s downfall she made two bad albums and a bad movie, Whitney tried to win fans back with Just Whitney but she was so bitchy on the album no one cared. So unfortunately for her, but lucky for us our little compilation has overlooked the mistake that was her last album and we instead concentrate on her great outputs.

Whitney’s debut album in 1985 pretty much arrived under my radar, living in Rhinelander Wisconsin, the R&B hits weren’t exactly played on the radio but I recall stepping into the record store and seeing her single for “You Give Good Love” right there in the top 10. I had no idea who she was or what the song was as I had never heard it. Of course it was only a matter of months before her second single, the bombastic “Saving All My Love For You” was all over the radio and I (or anyone else) would never wonder who Whitney Houston was again.

When I was a kid I used to fall asleep to the radio, I would hop into bed to the bristling sounds of WIFC 95.5 FM and fall asleep to the hits of the day. One night in 1985, there I was in bed and I recall hearing “Saving All My Love For You” and actually getting out of bed hoping to find out who sang the song. Now I’m not the sentimental mush type and wasn’t even back then but there was something utterly captivating about the voice and the whole song. The song isn’t so much a love song about someone leaving you or even how so much how in love you are, she is basically the mistress in the song refusing to get a man of her own because she wants to keep it going with this one. It was and still is interesting.

Of course the single became big and by the time Whitney was dancing around with her third single, the more pop jumpy “How Will I Know” she had become a bonafide star. I bought the cassette and actually listened to it all the time. Of course her dancy stuff from those days has a more dated sound while her ballads are pretty much timeless, there’s something kind of safe and comfortable in those 80’s synth dance beats. When Whitney made her official Greatest Hits album one CD was her ballads while the second CD was the dance cuts, all of which had been remixed and updated. I understand the reasoning but I really wanted the originals. How can it be a greatest hits if her greatest hits are unrecognizable?

Lucky for you, Bubbatunes went with the originals on her dance hits, so “How Will I Know” is exactly how you remember it from that summer of ’85, as is her first single from her follow up album “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)” which is another song that gives me the warm fuzzies. Apparently when asked if Whitney had any regrets about her career, she said she had two and they were the videos for “How Will I Know” and “I Wanna Dance…” which is sad because I love the videos, particularly the Dance one – those boys she was dancing with were hot especially the cowboy in his underwear…

Where was I? Oh yeah, Whits, and our little Nippy can take any ballad and completely charge it full of power and though I’m not one to love ballads, Whitney’s ballads have always touched me in some way. I absolutely adore “Didn’t We Almost Have It All” with its so sad our love is over but what can you do? Type of mentality, and “All The Man That I Need” which Whitney claims as a song about God but to me it’s really about that perfect man. I love it.

Of course her other big ballad from her self titled debut is her cover of “Greatest Love Of All” – I know what you’re thinking, “That’s a cover song?” Yeah, someone else sang it first but like Whitney, we’ve all claimed it as our own. She belts the shizz out of the song and where it could run into cheesiness it never actually makes it hilarious to me, as I really love those lyrics, “I believe the children are our future/ treat them well and let them lead the way…” but of course it’s the idea that the greatest love of all is found within yourself and I love, love the lyrics, “Everybody’s searching for a hero/ people need someone to look up to/ I never found anyone to fulfill the need/ a lonely place to find/ so I learned to depend on me…” It is striking and scathing yet beautifully true.

Our heaviest album featured on Call Me Nippy is Whitney’s debut album and with the highlights of the hits “Saving All My Love For You”, “Greatest Love Of All” and “How Will I Know”, so there is room for others as well including my all time favorite song on that debut “All At Once” – a slightly over the top ballad that’s set to a more upbeat contemporary tempo that just piano, Whitney cries out that her man is gone and it all just hit her at once. It’s a great performance and it really struck a chord for me for some reason.

Whitney first came to prominence by singing back up and doing a duet with Teddy Pendergrass (“Hold Me”), so it was probably a no brainer to include duets in her early career and for Whitney Houston, they hooked her up with Jermaine Jackson. The best of the cuts they do together is “Nobody Loves Me Like You Do” which once again, just strikes some strange chord in me. I think it’s sweet and nice and tender. I guess I can be a sucker sometimes too.

Lest we forget Whitney had a top ten hit before I ever heard of her, we’ve included “You Give Good Love” a soft mid tempo R&B celebration of love that is actually one of the weaker songs in her catalogs but one that still can’t be ignored. It’s still so hard to believe at the time of all these songs she was a mere 19 years old.. oh Nippy how far you’ve come.

By 1987, Whitney was ready for her second album and the first release was “I Wanna Dance…” which had me be bopping along, then came that wonderful ballad Of “Didn’t We Almost Have It All” but the Nips wasn’t done pushing the singles out quite yet – two more dance tracks would follow “So Emotional” and the interesting and somewhat strange for Whitney, “Love Will Save The Day” and there was even another hit ballad “Where Do Broken Hearts Go”, another song that I always liked though apparently it’s one Whitney almost didn’t record because she didn’t like it. Well, huh?

I’m Your Baby Tonight was Whitney’s third album and since so many years had passed in between albums so had the music scene, but that isn’t enough to stop Whitney. No, siree she just hopped on the trail and hired LA Reid and Babyface to produce a few songs. The big hit was the title cut and those boys proved a great find behind the power house Whitney, she was a little more carefree, a little more sure and a lot more funky.

But funky was only for funky’s case because the second single was the aforementioned “All The Man I Need” and her very next recording would be the one to blow the lid off of the world. “I Will Always Love You” a bombastic cover of a fairly restrained Dolly Parton song, Whitney was heard everywhere belting and belting. Personally, the song or rather her performance grew tired rather quickly but occasionally it’s all right to hear and it should really be included on a Whitney mix so I threw it on at the end.

“I Will Always Love You” was from The Bodyguard, Whitney’s big film debut but it’s hardly the only song that came from the soundtrack album and the much more enjoyable cover of Chaka Khan’s “I’m Every Woman” is a great time every single time I hear it. Although I am starting to think I only go through the song so I can get to the end where Whitney screams, “Chaka! Chaka Kahn!” which I always thought was awesome.

Rather than rely too heavily on her ballads that sprung from The Bodyguard I decided I wanted other Whitney songs on my compilation so we moved right past the rest of the soundtrack and went to her next film Waiting To Exhale, which is also a better movie if you want my honest to Jesus. The film is a great sound off to the African American woman and Whitney isn’t the only star so it’s much easier to watch and once again with the help of Babyface, her “Exhale (Shoop Shoop)” showed Whitney could be just as musically current as any Hottie hitting the scene. A slower mid tempo declaration of life, and how no matter how bad it can get, if you’ve got friends who care, you will reach the point where you can exhale.. shoop, shoop.

I originally had the single “I Believe In You & Me” from her film The Preacher’s Wife on the first editions of Call Me Nippy, but the song’s a bit of a bore and I really wanted the more urban world of Whitney that she created when she bounced back from fairly lackluster sales with the 1998 album My Love Is Your Love. It’s really the only other Whitney album (besides the debut) to own and some would probably argue its miles above even the debut. Full of great singles that went from “Heartbreak Hotel” to “I Learned From The Best” it showed a current and new side to Whitney.

But two other singles that captured my attention were the title track and “It’s Not Right But It’s Okay” – both were big hits and became even bigger hits when remixed with just slightly more dance feelings. I love the remix that was used on the single for “My Love Is Your Love” and that is the version we use here. The song is our opening track as it is probably my all time fav Whitney tune, full of love and what would happen if’s, the song sets an urban tale of woe should the whole world just implode at least she knows that her love is your love and my love is your love and that is love, or something like that. It’s an excellent song.

The remix of the single for “It’s Not Right But It’s Okay,” is used here as well. The song in its original form is a already a great song and definitely one of her better singles but when Thunderpuss remixed it into a full on attitude dance hit, Whitney liked it so much she went back and redid the video to use the new remix version; and if it’s good enough for Nippy then it’s good enough for Bubba.

Whitney Houston – Call Me Nippy (bub73)
Track List:
01. My Love Is Your Love (Wycleaf Jean Remix)
02. Didn’t We Almost Have It All
03. How Will I Know
04. All The Man That I Need
05. All At Once
06. So Emotional
07. Greatest Love Of All
08. I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)
09. I’m Your Baby Tonight
10. Saving All My Love For You
11. Where Do Broken Hearts Go
12. I’m Every Woman
13. You Give Good Love
14. Love Will Save The Day
15. Exhale (Shoop Shoop)
16. It’s Not Right But It’s Okay (Thunderpuss Remix)
17. Nobody Loves Me Like You Do
18. I Will Always Love You

Labels: bub73, Bubbatunes, diva, Whitney Houston

posted by swivek @ 12:24 PM 0 comments

New Bubbatunes - Diva 2

bub72 Donna Summer – Sweet Summer Songs (February 20, 2007)
Where Tina Turner may have more soul than any of her contemporaries, her songs tend to be more of a hit and miss where Donna Summer seems to have come up with consistently great songs at least from 1975 through 1989 because as I was looking through her catalog I came up with way more songs I loved than what a one CD collection could handle. Perhaps that’s the reason there’s about 20 Donna Summer compilations out there. I own two of them, one is a double disc full of her singles from the beginning of her career to the middle 90’s and the other is her first official greatest hits collection 1979’s On The Radio; both of them are great of course but like most performers, I have personal favorites that never seem to make it onto compilations and so Donna gets the bubbatunes treatment with Sweet Summer Songs, a 19 track set that compiles some of her more famous singles through out the years and some of my favorite album tracks.

Again we skip the obvious chronological track list and instead go for a big beat fast paced opener with her brilliant 1979 single “Bad Girls”. We spend a lot of time with Donna through her 1970’s output but that’s really where she did do most of her gleaming. I mean Donna’s 1970’s output was nothing short of brilliant, mixing it up between dance styled ballads, full on disco and pushing electronic dance music into the mainstream, she was never boring. We’ve included most of her hits during the time, the sexy and dirty debut of 1975’s “Love To Love You Baby”, her duet with Brooklyn Dreams “Heaven Knows” (1978), the string driven disco ballad “On The Radio” (1979), the introduction of electronics on “I Feel Love” (1977), the so insane it’s genius “Macarthur Park” (1978) and one of the very first songs I ever heard by Donna, 1978’s brilliant though still slightly overplayed “Last Dance.” A Donna Summer mix wouldn’t be complete without the mandatory sheer brilliance of the rock/dance hybrid known as “Hot Stuff”, so of course that is also here.

Although all those songs are legendary and brilliant some of her more under appreciated songs came from that era as well including two songs from 1979’s Bad Girls album, the smooth and bouncy story of Hollywood found in “Sunset People” which has been referred to as “the best Donna Summer album cut of her career” though it was released as a single in the UK in the summer of 1980. “Our Love” is another electronic based song and one that doesn’t get as much press as her others. The simplistic lyrics about love lasting even when you can’t be together isn’t exactly poetry but it’s sweet and the bleeping pulsing electronic backbeat including the drum machine solos is pure brilliance. I’ve always felt that “I Feel Love” had really poor lyrics and they were put in essentially to put Donna’s voice above the real purpose of the song – to introduce an all electronic sound where with “Our Love” Donna was actually able to express some real emotion and real drive while doing it above an excellent back beat.

Because of Donna’s amazing talent as a singer and her ability to change musical styles effortlessly, when disco died Donna’s career didn’t. Instead she was the second person signed to David Geffen’s new label (right behind John Lennon) and made one of my favorite albums 1980’s The Wanderer. We’ve included the brilliant title track which tells the story of a woman who just likes to go, go, go and refuses to stand still for a 9 to 5 life. When the song was released as a single the powers that be put the song “Stop Me” as it’s B-side and as the years progressed that song eventually got more play than the single. One of my favorite songs by Donna, it’s a simple little pop song that changes from a slightly mid tempo to full fast rocker as Donna hiccups the verses trying to get her man to believe she isn’t as awful as he thinks she is, as the chorus progresses however she has to ask the man if all of her pleading is just old hat, “So if you’ve heard this all before/ don’t let me carry on no more/ stop me/ stop me if you think you’ve heard this one/ this one/ stop me/ stop me if you think you’ve heard this one/ stop me/ stop me/ stop me!” It’s incredible and I wonder if Morrissey used this as the basis for his Smiths number???

Because of her diversity, we get to ride with her into the rock arena with 1980’s “Cold Love” an awesome guitar synth driven track that was the second single from The Wanderer album. I read a book a few years ago that had the best rock singles ever and believe it or not this song was one of them. Donna’s voice is in super form as she struts around looking for love, “Hope in the dark/ love in the light/ I keep on looking for someone who’s right/ a face and a name/ it’s always the same/ so sick of playing love’s foolish games/ tell me why/ tell me whyyyyy… cold love/cold love/ another shot of rock and roll love/ cold love/ cold love/ whatever happened to that sweet old love/ tell me why/ tell me why/ tell me why…”

After The Wanderer, Donna went back to the studio with her long time collaborators Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte to create a two-disc album known as I’m A Rainbow. Geffen Records rejected the album and they set her up with Quincy Jones instead so for years the I’m A Rainbow album sat on the shelves until it was finally released on CD in 1996. But what happened between those 15 years of shelf life is a few songs ended up here and there - usually on a soundtrack. One of those songs is actually one of her best songs ever – the synthy pop fun of “Romeo”. As Geffen shelved the album, they let Giorgio Moroder use it for his mega hit soundtrack to the film Flashdance. The song is full of fast paced Donna cooing and announcing how great a man she has. The music is full on early 80’s synth pop and her vocals and sort of 60’s girl group delivery makes it one of my favorite songs by Summer ever.

With the I’m A Rainbow album shelved, Donna was hooked up with Quincy Jones for 1982’s Donna Summer album. Of the Quincy Jones productions came the top ten hit, “Love Is In Control (Finger On The Trigger)” which is a high hitting gem if ever there was one. Full of energy and personality, it’s one of those hits that you forget about it until you hear it and then you can’t get the damn thing out of your head. Also from the Donna Summer album came an interesting foray into new music territory with the slightly reggae religious themed “State Of Independence.” I’m not huge on songs about Jesus when I’m not in church and Donna seems to know this so instead of a full on gospel choir type of song like she had done before (1980’s “I Believe In Jesus”), she used contemporary beats, ethereal lyrics and one of her best vocal performances. It probably didn’t hurt any that her chorus of back up singers were actually Quincy Jones, Michael Jackson, Dionne Warwick and Lionel Richie.

Sweet Summer Songs delves even further into Donna’s more unrecognized 80’s work with the 1987 single “Dinner With Gershwin” which is set to a kind of creepy little metallic synth track as she registers low trying to get close to her man, “I wanna have dinner with Gershwin/ I wanna watch Rembrandt sketch/ I wanna fly double with Earheart/ impossible I guess…” The clever lyrics by Brenda Russell (“Piano In The Dark”, “Get Here”) tell the story of a fantasy as the list of what Donna wants to do really consists of getting “next to you.”

Donna’s material through the early 80’s continued to keep her career in fairly high momentum, in 1983 a contractual obligation to old label Casablanca had her record an album for them, the result was one of her biggest hits ever with “She Works Hard For The Money.” If new wave and guitar rock were ushering in a new wind in the early 80’s pushing music like Donna’s crafted dance into the wings, this was Donna’s effort at pushing back. Using full on rock guitars but keeping some synthy and dancey bass lines, Donna’s song about the workingwoman hit a thread with the public and both the single and video were in constant play.

The 80’s ended with Donna working with yet another group of boys who were changing dance and pop music – those Brits known as Stock/Aitken/Waterman whose songs had been on rotation for most of the late 80’s with Banarama, Rick Astley and Kylie Minogue being just a few who had worked with the boys. The Donna Summer resulting album Another Place & Time may not have been quite up to par with other Donna albums but it was obvious by 1989 that both the boys of SAW and Donna were pretty good at creating brilliant singles and “This Time I Know It’s For Real” is no exception. It’s almost perfect in the delivery by the boys and with Donna writing the lyrics and singing in her Summer style, it’s one of the best singles the boys ever produced.

Donna Summer – Sweet Summer Songs (bub72)
Track List:
01. Bad Girls
02. Cold Love
03. Dinner With Gershwin
04. Love Is In Control (Finger On The Trigger)
05. Last Dance
06. The Wanderer
07. Our Love
08. Heaven Knows
09. On The Radio
10. Hot Stuff
11. Romeo
12. State Of Independence
13. I Feel Love
14. Stop Me
15. Sunset People
16. She Works Hard For The Money
17. Macarthur Park
18. Love To Love You Baby
19. This Time I Know It’s For Real

Come back to see our next new Bubbatune compilation with a diva who can certainly knows where broken hearts go even if she gets so emotional she has to exhale... any guesses? Until next time, beep beep aaah toot toot or just shoop shoop...

Labels: Bradley, bub72, Bubbatunes, diva, Donna Summer

posted by swivek @ 11:27 AM 2 comments