TS: Whitney's I Wanna Dance With Somebody vs. How Will I Know

How Will I Know wins but only by a hair - both are from the period when anything she sang sounded pretty damn good

was listening to How Will I Know the other night and her voice sounded literally divine.

I'm Your Baby Tonight

ha true nuff

its funny u know i never realized that's the title track.

"How Will I Know?" is a superior "Who's Zoomin' Who," down to the trademark zoomin' Narada Michael Walden synth-bass whoosh. My favorite uptempop Whitney.

"How Will I Know"

A few nights ago on VH1 Soul they played every Whitney Houston video in chronological order. That was weird.

"How Will I Know" sounds better in every possible way. "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" was always a bad copy.

Whitney Houston's first two singles were great. The rest of her output has mostly been awful, with the possible exception of "I'm Your Baby Tonight" and a surprisingly good version of "I'm Every Woman".

I heard a reggaeton-ish version of "How Will I Know" recently, anyone know the name of it?

I remember hearing "So Emotional" awhile back and thinking it wasn't that bad of a production job.

Most of those Whitney singles are anything but emotional. When ignorami speak of how "cheesy" eighties R&B was, this pneumatic album is what they have in mind.

David Byrne's unironic cover of "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" is pretty good.

"How Will I Know?" is a superior "Who's Zoomin' Who," down to the trademark zoomin' Narada Michael Walden synth-bass whoosh. My favorite uptempop Whitney.

Ditto. "I Wanna Dance" is sort of sucky, actually.

Plus the "How Will I Know" video is way better.

What Geir said!

The album version of "It's Not Right, et al" sounds really good when a drag queen in a teddy is lip-syncing to it.

It's the only context in which that song works. Same with "Heartbreak Hotel."

Both choices are indefensible shit.

Sigh…Alex, Alex, Alex…you must really learn how to enjoy yourself a bit more…

i dunno, last time i heard "i wanna dance.." out i had a blast. tough call i think

Who said I didn't enjoy that?

I was going to say, reminding ilxors of the suckiness of great pop seems to be what Alex gets the most enjoyment out of.

the beginning to I Wanna Dance is fierce

my beloved Alex, whom I have known in flesh and blood terms for a decade and with whom I have tangled with similarly, may get transitory pleasure from spending his idle moments fulminating against music that offends his "if its not macho hard rawk along the lines of Killing Joke and Maiden, then I must disparage it using baroque invective." And that's his right. I do wonder what it will be like for him when his offspring become old enuff to encounter whatever equivalent of High School Musical or Akon and its played around the house all the time. Will his attitude towards fluffy pop change then?

Look, "Veronica," why even bring KJ or Maiden into this? I'm merely decrying bad music. And Whitney Houston makes bad music. Simple as that.

If my kids choose to listen to bad music, that'll be their choice, but that shan't stop me from pointing out to them that it's bad.

And you're the one who plays in a "macho hard rawk" band, not me.

"Whitney Houston makes bad music. Simple as that."

In my view, she has made some bad music and some good music. But I do not insist that my views as such are absolutes, true unto the universe.

"And you're the one who plays in a "macho hard rawk" band, not me."

Thankfully, this fact does not represent the sum total of my taste. I bring KJ and Maiden into it because they are often held up as the ideal in many of your posts.

do you want to have lunch next week?

And Whitney Houston makes bad music. Simple as that.

I agree with Alex in NYC on this thread. If this conversation were happening on a Janet Jackson thread, different story.

Went to see And You Will Know By The Trail Of The Dead... a couple of days ago. A friends band was supporting, anyway before Trail of Dead came on the DJ played "How Will I Know". I pointed out that there was no chance any other music we heard that night would be anywhere near as good. I wasn't wrong.

The production on How Will I Know is much too clean and Whitney's voice is much too beautiful for it to be considered an example of bad music.

In any event, "bad music" is a lame excuse for an observation - cheesy music is not exempt from more focused criticism.

Whitney's voice is much too beautiful for it to be considered an example of bad music.

Whitney's voice is a shrill fucking car alarm.

okay that's kind of funny even tho i don't agree at all =P