Whitney Houston 1963 - 2012

And, sadly, here we find ourselves again - reacting to the untimely demise of another internationally recognised figure, delicately picking our way through the details so as to avoid ugly truth-exposing. There is merit in that of course - object number one is to acknowledge the passing of Whitney Houston is a sad and tragic event ; it appears to have been accidental, and therefore perhaps avoidable, and 48 is no age at all.

It is accepted in these circumstances to reflect upon the 'greatness' of the person in question, and the sadness of the loss of their talent. I wonder if many will be brave enough to openly state that the latter happened many years ago in Whitney Houston's case, totally by her own hand, and I hope that there is as little revisionism and airbrushing of history as possible when her 'legacy' is prepared.

The talent itself is undenied - now, for my palette, Whitney could bland it out with the best / worst of them, but one thing that made her stand out was her voice. She may have paved the way for such sing-bots as Carey and Dion, and thus built the foundations for the school of thought which deemed it a good idea to cram as many notes into as few words as possible ; she may have instigated to some extent the malaise which meant the shoutyness of the singer was always dominant over the quality of the song. But the one thing that raised her above the rest was that she had soul - genetically, from her mother Cissy and her aunt, Dionne Warwick (and having Aretha as a godparent won't have done any harm). Had she not blown it all so spectacularly who knows what kinds of music she could have produced in her later years, with the right collaborators - instead, she croaked and bumbled her way through abortive comebacks, each one making future successful ones less and less likely. Imagine Whitney produced by William Orbit, or N.E.R.D., or even Mark Ronson......

Creatively and on a wider cultural level, she was miles behind contemporaries such as Madonna, even Janet Jackson, though she could sing both of them off the planet with her eyes closed. She leaves a legacy sustained by big sales numbers (so no wonder industry luminaries are lining up to eulogise), but tainted by self-destructive excess.