If people want to drink too much, smoke too much and take drugs, that's up to them. But when they die because of it, they deserve no sympathy what so ever.

Why is that hypocritical? liking somebody's music/writing/film has nothing to do with a lack of sympathy for a self inflicted death? These are two separate issues that should be treated as such.

It must be tough sitting in your pool crying about how bad your lot is and why you not getting the attention you think you should!! bit like an abused child crying in their bedroom - let's get some perspective here?

I agree, but perhaps its the drinking too much, smoking too much and the drugs too much that produces the artistic output that the rest of us admire and pay money for ?

She's not the first, hell she's at the back of a very long line of musicians who abused their bodies and brains in a lifestyle choice (which then leads to addiction) in order to produce something that the rest of us cannot replicate but instead are willing to purchase and promote and elevate the musician in question to that of hero, then when we've killed them off elevate them further to sainthood, we stand back and admire the "rock and roll lifestyle" and wait until they burn out heroically before condemning them.


On a slightly different tack, 48 years of age is going to be regarded as a good innings for some of the current teen/20 year olds if they continue to believe that alcohol abuse is harmless while an industry who milk them of their cash are oblivious of the dangers and continue to deny them.

See McLaren's very good explanation.

Whitney Houston will love you always, which turns out to be 2012. Maybe the Mayans were right. 

My feelings too. She peaked with her first few hits to my mind, but it's still incredibly sad when addiction claims another life.

She had a fantastic voice at her peak. Her rendition of the Murrcan anthem at the Superbowl is incredible.

I don't normally buy into the "lets all mourn a celebrity" e, but this has made me truly sad Anyone girl up in the 80's cannot fail to have been touched by her awesome talent. From "How will I know" through The Bodyguard and Waiting To Exhale to "Its not right (but its ok)" there has been a Whitney track for every occasion/heartache. She is the one artist (aside from MJ) that I truly grew up with. I followed her career and life (used to adore Bobby Brown) quite closely and its so sad that she succumbed so young. And if news reports in recent years are to be trusted, her daughter is going down the same road. Let's hope this wakes her up. www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1Y5Ln9PzVw RIP Whitney

I don't normally buy into the "lets all mourn a celebrity" e, but this has made me truly sad Anyone girl up in the 80's cannot fail to have been touched by her awesome talent. From "How will I know" through The Bodyguard and Waiting To Exhale to "Its not right (but its ok)" there has been a Whitney track for every occasion/heartache. She is the one artist (aside from MJ) that I truly grew up with. I followed her career and life (used to adore Bobby Brown) quite closely and its so sad that she succumbed so young. And if news reports in recent years are to be trusted, her daughter is going down the same road. Let's hope this wakes her up. www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1Y5Ln9PzVw RIP Whitney

Normally I'd agree but this is Whitney Houston we're talking about not Nina Simone. This is someone who's most popular work was produced when she was a teatotle virgin. She then went on to marry Bobby Brown (best known for being one of a child boy band), surely every marketing man's wet dream? Musical output while she was on the pop and dope was the equivalent of listening to Jimmy Nail farting in the bath. Much like Jane Seymour in Live and Let Die her "gift" vanished the first time she did the nasty.

Houston we have a problem.








Sorry, erm, I meant RIP Whitney. I remember dancing with a girl for the first time to 'Wanna Dance With Somebody'. And she did lots of nice songs. Should have stayed off the crack though.

Her 1998 album was incredibly successful globally. 6 years after she married Bobby.

Nobody will ever agree in music as its such personal taste but I thought she was a phenomenal talent and like I said earlier I grew up with her.

Every Whitney song takes me back to the time I first heard it.

No denying she was a mess in the past few yrs (ironically after divorcing Bobby). Nobody ever gets addicted to drugs because they are really happy.

A truly irritating pop song and I"ve never attempted the film, thankfully.

Responsible for introducing the nauseating vocal gymnastics that people seem to think constitutes 'soul'....



A sad loss for her family and fans, but musically hardly a tremor on the musical richter scale.

Oh, I thought she got that from Auntie Ree. Or possibly her mother. Both used it during their careers.
Both of who were always much more talented and, more importantly, didn't need drugs or booze to help them.

By comparison with Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner, few have been.

He was cr4p on the X-Factor though

going by how the drugs and drink destroyed her voice, you have to say musically, her best work was well before she choose to become a crack smoking drinker.

Just got back from the slavver shop and spotted it on ITV2+1.....Go on Coddy, you know you want to.

Judging by the responces on here I assume it was a drugs related death? Or are people jumping to conclusions?

I can't believe Bobby Brown has out lived her to be honest. I'm not a fan but she was a singer with genuine talent, something which can't be said of the majority of singers these days.

Well I don't mind saying that I thought she was the bees knees at her peak.
And in the style she sang in, never mind stupid comparisons with other genres, she was simply the best at that time (mid 80s).
But of course we are all much superior and totally in control of our lives.
What a silly drug-addled tart she was.

Whitney Houston had a great voice. No doubts about it. But if we are to consider her a great artist purely because of her voice then doesn't that render the words that came out of her mouth meaningless, or simply a means to an end? I can't imagine her lyrics were [isolely [/iwritten as a method of maximising melody so I'll rule out the latter.

I guess her lyrics are meaningless in any attempt to define artistic worth. Which is a good thing because her lyrics [ireally were[/i meaningless. Ok, maybe not INXS "meaningless" - but certainly so to anyone past the age where appeals to childish emotions take precedence over appeals to reason.

Whitney Houston was a star, a phenomenon - but most of all a brand. As such she performed better than almost any other recording artist in living memory. The proof is in the $$$$.

I always thought she was one of those soul singers with a great voice and awful songs.

The weird thing about her having one of the great pop voices is that she was connected to one of my favourite female vocalists ever, Dionne Warwick (her cousin), and her godmother was (indeed, still is) the legendary Aretha Franklin. Some of it must have rubbed off.

An astonishing voice. Shame.

Her voice was great. But then I've heard plenty of great voices, many of them never made much or anything out of the record business. Indeed, two I can think of emanated from people who never claimed to be remotely interested in a music career.

If "talent shows" such as X-Factor, Pop Idol, American Idol etc. have shown us one thing it is that great voices aren't so rare a thing. I mean, American Idol is packed to the gunnels with people who can sing the hearts out of hummingbirds.

My biggest gripe with Houston (aside from her godawful lyrics) was her insatiable habit for introducing all manner of distracting - to the point of downright annoying - tics, lip-quivers and other facial contrivances for added effect (almost all were not present early on). So much so that toward the end of her career she seemed like one giant antic formed out of many smaller ones.

Is she dead? You'd have thought they would have mentioned it on the BBC News channel.

Well it's nice to see some heavyweights saying that she did have a great voice.
It doesn't really matter to me that she was not to many people's taste, that is always going to be the case.
But I admired the work that must have gone into that voice, she must have worked damned hard.
I also admired that she (foolishly perhaps) pushed her voice to the absolute limit of what it could do and still kept it tuneful.
She burned her voice out and that can't have helped her in her personal life.
She would have had problems with how wonderful she was and how crap she had become.