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Whitney Houston - The Greatest Hits
review by Ren C.
Not Rated
Studio: Arista
Running Time: 70 minutes
Starring: Whitney Houston
Retail Price: $24.95
Features: Extra Performances, Interviews
Specs: Full Screen (Standard)-1.33:1, English (Dolby
Digital 5.1), English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)
Over the course of the last fifteen years, Whitney
Houston has established herself as one of pop music's most
versatile and enduring artists. Now, for the first time,
she brings us a nearly complete collection of her music
videos. These videos date back to 1985, and are incredibly
varied, showing not only Houston's evolution, but also the
evolution of music and culture in general. The collection
starts with "You Give Good Love", which was Houston's very
first solo video, so it's only fair to cut her a little bit
of slack for it. It's not an actively bad video, it's just
not as good as some of her other works would become. Next
is "Saving All My Love For You", Houston's first number one
hit, another slow song that has proved to be one of her most
enduring. This video has more of a storyline, and shows
that Houston is already evolving into a diva. This theme
would be continued with the next video, "How Will I Know."
I feel the need to mention that this is only the third
video, and we've already gone through three hairstyles, but
I digress. This video screams '80s and is great solely for
its nostalgia value. The fourth video is one of Houston's
most-known and most-loved songs, "Greatest Love Of All."
The video doesn't exactly have a plotline, consisting mainly
of Houston wandering around an empty auditorium, and singing
the song.
Next we move to the videos from Houston's second album,
entitled merely "Whitney." The first of these is "I Wanna
Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)." This is another of
those great '80s videos, with Houston's hairstyle
threatening to dominate the screen. Next is "Didn't We
Almost Have It All." This video features a live performance
of the song by Houston, which is arguably more affecting
than any video could have been. "So Emotional" is another
great video, as the song has more of a rock tinge to it and
another great performance by Houston. The final video from
"Whitney" is "Where Do Broken Hearts Go" which is a great
ballad, with a fairly standard ballad video.
The next album that Houston released was "I'm Your Baby
Tonight", and the video for the title track is the next
included. This was the first '90s video released by
Houston, and is showing her definite evolution as an artist.
Next is "All The Man That I Need" and while I'm not really thrilled
with the way that most of Houston's ballad videos tend to
look the same, it's a small nitpick.
Included next is the very memorable performance of "The
Star-Spangled Banner" from Super Bowl XXV that is still
considered one of the best in Super Bowl history. A great
inclusion, as Houston could sing the phone book and make it
sound affecting, so she does absolute wonders here. From
there we move to "The Bodyguard" which was Houston's first
film, and a huge soundtrack. "I Will Always Love You" is
the first video included from this endeavor, and I think
that every human being on the planet has heard this song at
least once, as it was the most over-played song, quite
possibly, of the 90s. It's a standard soundtrack video,
with performance clips interspersed with movie clips. The
same can be said about the next video "I'm Every Woman".
This is a slightly more upbeat song, however, and is has far
less clips than the preceding video. "I Have Nothing" is
another sweeping ballad that is much like "I Will Always
Love You" in that it is performance/clips. "Run To You" is
yet another ballad released from "Bodyguard" with more clips
from the movie. I think that over the course of these
videos, I've basically seen the entire movie. But wait,
there's one more. "Queen of the Night" is taken almost
wholly from the movie, with only minor tweaks made here and
there.
Next up, we move to "The Preacher's Wife", with the song
"Step By Step." There is really nothing to connect this to
the movie in any way, as it is essentially Houston standing
a platform singing. We then move to Houston's most recent
studio effort, the album "My Love Is Your Love" which
represents Houston's attempt to be more '90s by having lots
of cameos, and turning herself almost into "Gangsta
Whitney". The first video is "Heartbreak Hotel" with Kelly
Price and Faith Evans dropping by to sing about how Houston
was spurned and then throw a fur coat into the ocean. "My
Love Is Your Love" is included next, and is a great song
with Houston wandering the streets of New York, and singing
the song. "It's Not Right But It's Okay" has Houston
standing in a dark soundstage type room singing about how
she was done wrong. The last video is "I Learned From The
Best" which puts Houston in a Diana Ross hairdo and has her
back on stage singing about how she was done wrong.
There has been a lot of talk about that the fact that
this DVD doesn't include all of Houston's videos. I can
argue that it really doesn't need to, as the videos that it
doesn't include either aren't Houston's greatest (My Name is
Not Susan) or probably couldn't be included due to licensing
agreements (Exhale (Shoop Shoop)). As it stands, between
the videos in the main feature, and the extras included,
there is more than enough Whitney to sustain the loyal fans.
These videos look a lot better than they could be
expected to look, as some of them are approaching two
decades old. There is a very strange effect going on with
"Heartbreak Hotel", with the sides letterboxed as opposed to
the top, but aside from that, all the videos look really
good. "The Star-Spangled Banner" shows a little wear, as it
could be expected to with age and the fact that it was more
than likely taken from the original broadcast.
All the videos here are at above CD quality, sounding as
if they were being performed for the first time. There
really isn't anything here to give the sound system a great
workout, but I enjoy the fact that they are all mastered in
Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround. If only all music video
collections were released this way, I would be happy.
This is another place where the disc really shines.
There are a number of great extras included. The lyrics to
each of the songs in the main program are included as a
subtitle track, which is a feature that I always enjoy on
collections such as this. There are a few times in "Didn't
We Almost Have It All" where the lyrics disappear for a few
seconds, but that is the only fault with them. A web link
to Arista's Whitney Houston site is included for the benefit
of those with DVD-ROM drives. There is an interview with
Whitney Houston included where she covers where she's been,
and speaks about her history and the videos on the DVD.
There is a similar interview with Clive Davis, founder of
Houston's record label, Arista Records, speaking about how
he came to know Houston, and her evolution. Houston's video
runs around ten minutes, Davis' around three and a half.
Next is a fairly extensive series of special
performances. First, and of incredible historical value, is
Houston's first television performance on "The Merv Griffin
Show" of "Home." Even in this performance, it was obvious
that Houston was going to be a star. Next is Houston's
performance of "Lover For Life" at "A Concert For A New
South Africa" in 1989. As fantastic as the videos are,
these live performances give the disc a whole new dimension.
A 1989 Grammy Awards performance of "One Moment In Time" is
included, and is arguably the most impressive performance on
the disc. Houston absolutely shines here. The only
drawback here, as with some of the other TV footage is that
it is fairly grainy, and of TV quality. That still doesn't
detract from the performance, however. Next is about an
eight-minute featurette on the making of the album "My Love
Is Your Love". So convincing is this featurette that I
wanted to buy the album after seeing it, despite the fact
that I already own the album. It talks about what it took
to bring the album together, and the myriad of collaborators
that Houston worked with. A performance of "Why Does It
Hurt So Bad", from the "Waiting To Exhale" soundtrack is
included from the 1996 MTV Movie Awards. Nice to see the
song included, even if it wasn't the greatest performance of
Houston's career. A live concert performance from Germany
of "My Love Is Your Love" is next, and I have absolutely no
problem with sitting through this song again, as it is one
of Houston's recent gems. A fairly brief clip is included
from Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Cinderella" is included,
with Houston as the Fairy Godmother singing "Impossible" to
(ugh) Brandy as Cinderella. Nice to have it included,
though. The last of these special performances is not
really a performance, but an MTV News clip with about ten
seconds of Houston singing "It's Not Right But It's Okay".
Again, very nice to have it here.
The final special feature here is a behind-the-scenes at
the photo shoot for Houston's "Greatest Hits" disc. This is
basically some raw footage of Houston doing the shoot that
led to the cover for this disc, and "Greatest Hits". Also,
not a special feature as such, but a very nice inclusion was
the fact that inside my copy of this disc, I received a CD
single for the song "I Learned From The Best" which was a
very pleasant surprise.
F Like I stated, Whitney Houston is one of the most
successful female artists in history, and her influence is
only now beginning to be felt. This is a fantastic
collection of her best work, and loyal fans should have no
hesitations in picking it up. Not a fan? Check it out; you
may very well be converted by the time it's over. High
recommendation.
 (4/5, NOT included in
final score)
 (3.5/5)
(4/5)
 (3/5)
(4/5,
NOT an average)
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