Customer Reviews

Just Whitney (Special Edition) (CD & DVD)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Just Whitney is excellent it has some up-beat jams like "One Of Those Days" , "Love That Man","Dear John Letter" are a hip-r&b songs with the beat that makes you dance.Then there's the jam tunes like" Things You Say",her duet with Bobby Brown on "My Love" shows they care,and love each other.There's the ballad's
"Try It On My Own","You Light up My Life","Unashamed",and Tell Me No" were she really expresses the way she feels.Then "Watchalookinat" the single were she fights back at the press for the rumors that is a good song

This album is excellent,it makes u feel like you are in a relationship
go out and by the album :)

I loved it, who said Whitney's voice is gone? This album proves she is still Whitney. I reccomend it! Her soulful voice and lyrics shines through. It has a positive edge to it you go WHITNEY!

In recent years, we've all become so enmeshed in Whitney's so-called "problems" that we've not focused on her music for years. This latest release proves that Ms. Houston still has it GOIN' ON! That Voice...just keeps getting better with time. All of the elements that made us fall in love with her are still there...and the woman can still hit those high notes. This album deals with some personal issues, but has a message for everyone..."One of those days"..."Unashamed"..."Tell Me No"...they're sure hits. Miss Whitney...YOU GO GURL!

Media can do so much damage to wonderous talents and I have witnessed this since my teens in the sixties when Judy Garland was labeled a has-been in 1965 yet when I witnessed her tremendous performance opening night at The Greek Theatre on 9/13/65 this was to be the greatest concert experience ever for this now forty-plus year concert goer yet strangely the next day neither major newspaper reported on this...I learned at a young age to judge for yourself! Forget about all of the negative press and enjoy "Just Whitney" in her finest hour...this two-disc set is worth it's weight in gold with the DVD being a wonderous musical fantasy while the CD is richly varied and filled with great performances...who could ask for anything more?
"One Of Those Days" starts the groove right with Whitney in superb form on a wonderfully flowing song that is infectious and should have been a huge blockbuster hit...a riveting "Tell Me No" is a great Whitney athem with an edgy tremendous vocal that is one of her all-time finest and guaranteed to wear out the repeat mode! "Things You Say" is wildly romantic and engrossing while the great self-penned Bobby Brown duet "My Love" is quite winning and has a nice flow to it.
A funky romantic jam "Love That Man" is a cooker that has a hit sound to it while "Try It On My Own" is one of Whitney's greatest ever athem performances...this is a solid classic and thrilling to experience both vocally and emotionally and defines what this magnificent singer is all about. A great funky jam "Dear John Letter" flows like honey while the hypnotic "Unashamed" is dark and exotic and this great yet sadly overlooked collection should have been a huge blockbuster...shame on the music industry for not giving support to this collection of versatile and wonderous performances...should have had multiple Grammy Awards and sold more than just a few million...a perfect example of why the music industy is in the pit!
Many have recorded "You Light Up My Life" but never has anyone gone to the core of this song until this beautifully moving version...a performance filled with so much feeling and emotion that it can easily bring one to tears...Bravo to Whitney Houston for this wonderous and incredibly great performance...you are something else!!!
Closing this masterpiece is the engaging hit "Whatchulookinat" which is a wild rhythm cooker that should have gone to #1 but with so much bad press this great song was only top 10...listen to these lyrics! Stop taking apart this legendary talent and just enjoy...thank you Whitney Houston for sharing your great gift and please keep it coming and we do love and miss you alot and look forward to more great music delivered in a way that only you can!!!!

well her voice may not be as strong as it used to be but she is still the best female singer of all time. the best song i like is "one of those days". theres a lot of people talking about her right now and theyr'e just haters. I hope this isn't her last cd. anyone who likes Whitney Houston will like this cd. but i am on the side of people who say she should go back to her original producers that helped her make great songs such as "how will I know", and " I will always love you" but if she just keeps making albums she will be in great shape. Whatever you do Whitney don't retire because you have millions of fans. there is always someone to bring you down but just keep doing what you doing. Come back to 106 and park again to.

Just Whitney is a mature continued entry by one of the music industry's best singers (if not THE best) into the mature R&B route that she experimented with on her last hit LP, "My Love Is Your Love." The track opens up with a smooth, catchy R&B number by Mrs. Bobby Brown herself, "One Of Those Days" that shows she can still deliver, regardless of whether she's showing her powerful pipes off with her incredible range of octaves (she leaves the belting very largely aside here). After this pleasant R&B number is finished, you enter what is destined to be a new pop smash, "Tell Me No", a song that can seem targeted to anything from a romantic relation to Whitney's relationship with the press. Whitney shows off the best of her vocal capability as she repeatedly tells you not to doubt her. A brilliant electric guitar riff at the end leaves you wondering how great this song can really take off. Definitely one of the "Up" moments on this album.
Just Whitney has its share of middle-of-the-road catchy, smooth R&B numbers that follow in the vein of "One Of Those Days". My Love is a duet with her husband (Bobby Brown, which you should already know) where they exchange their feelings on the doubts people had on their relationship. Love That Man is a funky catchy number that has one of the more memorable music hooks on the album, as well as Dear John Letter, with its "creative" wordplay (how many songs portray breakups through the Americanized Dear John Letter?) and slightly inventive musical composition.

Two classy ballads are included here, not only showing off Whitney's soulful delivery, but why you were amazed at her powerful vocals in the first place. In true Broadway fashion, Whitney struts her stuff on Try It On My Own and You Light Up My Life (a fine cover of the Debby Boone classic) as she takes the sweeping classical/R&B style music and maturely-penned lyrics ("Try It On My Own" is of succeeding on your own when in doubt; "You Light Up My Life" is famously about telling someone you love how much you really do, even when they may not be aware of it when you feel they should).

The reviewer's favorite track is a mid-tempo with sweeping vocals and amazingly bold but strong lyrics called "Unashamed." Here, Whitney becomes a role model for millions, as she tells everyone that she (and perhaps that the listener to themselves) is unashamed of what has been her past and how she looks forward to the future because of her decisions. The music is very seductive-sounding, and Whitney's doesn't overdo things with her pipes here, giving a calm performance until the end, where she takes your breath away with several vocal runs that will remind you she's "unashamed" of who she is. The album closes with the former single, "Whatchulookinat", which despite its somewhat disturbingly-paranoid lyrics over lack of privacy, still has a catchy R&B sound that reminds you of that of a funky live band like Lucy Pearl or The Roots, and a vocal performance that shows that Whitney knows how to get things done with what she wants to say.

All in all, Just Whitney is an overall pleasure, with very few faults. In fact, there is only one fault. Unlike a few of her past albums, there is no uptempo track (or tracks) that will keep heated energy to the listener as they listen to the entire LP. With past LPs, Whitney had us on our feet and feeling joy to our ears with gems (to fans at least) like "It's Not Right But It's Okay", "I'm Your Baby Tonight", "Queen of the Night," and plenty more to name. There is none here on "Just Whitney" leaving repeated listenings the need for requiring excited energy to leap out of the disc in your ear. But all in all, as hinted before here, Just Whitney gets its job done. Perhaps more tracks could have sufficed, since a forty minute LP does feel a little "rough" and "unfinished" and there could have been more tracks to prove Whitney's still got that incredible voice that makes her one-of-a-kind, but in the long-run, it seems slightly OK that there's that fault. Hopefully, more skeptical listeners should realize that if Whitney can't have her golden days from any certain point of her lengthy career (but with a voice so trained through gospel music, and that can mature so much through aging, it really shouldn't be a problem), she most certainly can outsing and outdo alot of the popular singers we have today, especially the ones that constantly reflect the "here today-gone tomorrow" pattern. On "Just Whitney", Whitney shows off her talent, never overall drastically over-doing things here, and also showing maturity in classily handling issues for the mostpart on what she feels needs to be heard and how she wants to present them.

Now, to what makes this album a special edition. It comes in special slipcase packaging, and as you already know, a bonus DVD. Honestly, the DVD (like MANY released by record labels such as Sony, Arista, amongst others) lacks anything really special. It features a nice animated menu, and a great mini-suprise - Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround. However, the actual content isn't much. Whitney came out with a fine-mediocre video to the first international single, "Whatchulookinat", included here. You also get some four-five minutes of behind-the-scenes camera footage watching certain taped work getting done (such as Whitney working with the kids of the video, etc..) and the master herself watching her taped footage of the video as well. Now, there is one more thing, and it's a GREAT one too. The Love To Infity MegaMix is an excellent thing for any Whitney fan. Featuring a megamix full of remixes from Whitney hits like "It's Not Right But It's Okay," "I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)," and "The Greatest Love Of All," along with incredibly well-syncopated footage of Whitney music video and live performance footage, the megamix video tries to remind you how incredible Whitney's overall talent and career really is. And in this viewer's opinion, it works.

All in all:

LETTER GRADE FOR JUST WHITNEY: B
STAR RATING: 3 1/2 - 4 Out Of 5 Stars

This album is definately worth the money. I went out and begged people to take me to the store today just to go buy it and it is absolutely wonderful. In my opinion, the best song is "Try it On My Own", its a beautiful ballad that speaks about self independance and her voice is exquisite. There may have been much skeptacism to whether or not Whitney still has the voice or if she can still do it, well I'm here to tell you that she indeed has the voice and can still do it. The album in magical and only adds to her legacy as 'THE VOICE'.

There are often times where so many of fans, indefinitely forget about artists from the past, largely because of what seems to be hot on radio today, or for because of personal issues and problems that somebody might have. That has been that case with Whitney Houston. Although she has recorded some of the best songs on radio and on television, many people would rather use her as a punching bag because of her personal problems, whether it is somebody from the National Enquirer, or sketch performer Debra Wilson from MAD TV. Nevertheless, it still remains a sad situation. Her last record though still shows that she is still standing and her voice will always remain a gem for so many.

Just Whitney, Whitney Houston's 2002 record, is a bit shorther than her '98 record My Love Is Your Love, but the feeling of voice on this record remains as strong as ever. The album revolves around what was going on through Whitney's eyes at the time from her personal vices, to a public family feud involving her and her late father, John Houston. The songs here still sound great and down to Earth such as the somber Try It On My Own, which Whitney performed on the FOX televsion show Boston Public, the upbeat One Of Those Days, and a elequent cover of Debby Boone's You Light Up My Life to name a few. This edition also includes a DVD of two music videos including Whatchulookinat', a song Whitney recorded, slamming the negativity she received over the past several years, and another video as well.

Despite the pain she has gone through, I would still rather listen to Whitney Houston, over a overexposed, manufactured artist like Jennifer Lopez or Kelly Clarkson from American Idol anyday. I absolutely still enjoy this record, and if you're still a die hard Whitney fan than you'll enjoy it to.

Album Cover: A-

Songs: A

Price: B 1/2+

Mastering: A-

Bonus DVD: B

Overall: B+

With a huge batch of stale and boring albums released in 2002, Whitney's newest offering stands high above the rest. Though the first two singles, "Watchulookinat" and "One Of Those Days," have been commercial failures, the fact still remains: they are fun, sexy, and amazing songs. Although the tracklist is a dissapointing 10 tracks, none of them fail to meet expectations. From the inspirational "Tell Me No" and "Try It On My Own" to the fun and irresistable "My Love" and "Dear John Letter," this album is full of huge production pieces that never seem enough. Although "Just Whitney..." does not top "My Love Is Your Love," it is still an exceptional record. NOTE: i am not an obsessive Whitney fan, i am not rating this record 5 STARS because i am a huge fan of her, but because of the quality. HOLLA

After hearing the critics, I almost didn't buy the CD. Believe me, buy the CD and make your own judgement. I think it's excellent. She still has the voice and the CD reflects it. There's not too many CDs that I can listen to from beginning to end and appreciate. This is one CD that I will enjoy!