When I think about the amazing talent of Whitney Houston I have consider the talents that God bestows on us as humans. The talent of creating a skyscraper, the talent of producing and magnificant painting, the talent of a having a scientific mind, or being an amazing leader, etc., etc.
All these talents come from God. Like many other incredible performers, Whitney Houston was said to have honed her singing talents growing up in church.
I'm not surprised by the amazing media attention regarding her recent death. It's a shame her personal life and battle with drugs also sits side by side with her phenominal music career.
But her music melted the hearts of millions of people myself included, and her music like many amazing performers has a way of drawing us back to who we were and what we were doing when her songs came out. Because of the power and beauty of that natural talent, fans of her music are frozen in time when we hear one of her beautiful songs. Her untimely passing will not be able to tune out the beauty of those memories nor the beauty of her recorded voice.
She's numbered among the many tragedies of an early super-stardom success. Having passed away at the age of 48 means that she was really young when she was at the peak of her music career. We've seen that a lot of young "super stars" have had it really bad during the course of their lives; trying to reconcile that super-stardom with "reality". When their starlight starts to dim, they experience rejection and their lives are turned upside down.
Although she wasn't known for singing for the glory of God, her music is still a testimate to our humanity in all it's imperfections and vunerabilities. Perhaps if she sang about finding love and sent people in the wrong direction looking for it, I just see it as an extention of our own personal romantic tragedies, and most of us have them. I still see it as honest. And coming from a person who herself might have had a tragic romantic experiences, it's all the more honest.
But we make the mistake sometimes of personalizing these beloved artists as though we truly know them when it's more like an infatuation than a real love. It's a natural thing having music so ingrained within our culture. We become intuned to passionate expressions that we can all relate to and thus embrase the expressions as though we're embrasing the artist themselves.
To me the sensationalism of it all also becomes a problem when you become infatuated with an emotion rather than a "real" thing. It's almost like "loving love" ... It might sound sweet but in all honestly, it doesn't make any sense.
I think our love for the arts also produces a lot of this sensationalism when we find ourselves becoming over- emotional about non tangible things. I think it's the same mentality that a lot of artists live in and it gets mentally consumed by their fans.
I think this "un reality" can be dangerous and deceptive and although I can relate to popular music and how it has affected my life and past experiences, I can now intellectually disect those emotions from the true reality and understand the difference.
