Whitney Houston

Whitney Houston's return after an eight-year absence, 1998's My Love Is Your Love, should not have worked as well as it did: Houston had firmly entered her career's second decade, so hiring R&B's hippest producers to modernize her sound seemed like a last grasp at the credibility younger, edgier singers like Mary J. Blige enjoyed. Yet Houston dug into the project, discovering new reserves of sass and overhauling her songbird shtick to reflect the rocky terrain of her well-publicized personal life. On her anticipated follow-up, Just Whitney, she attempts to pull off the same trick; unfortunately, she ends up with the album My Love could've been.

Those hip producers supply some worthwhile moments: Missy Elliott's "Things You Say" is a slow-burning future-soul number that swivels on a butterscotch guitar part, and Destiny's Child men Kevin "She'kspere" Briggs and Rob Fusari perk up "Love That Man" and "Dear John Letter" with lots of digitized disco noise. But the disc lacks the sense of personality that gave My Love its human spark, with Houston smothered by Babyface's soggy melodrama in "Try It on My Own" and "You Light Up My Life" (yes, the dreadful soft-rock warhorse). The set ends on a high note with the sprightly "Whatchulookinat," a ridiculous blast of paranoid space-funk, but by that point, who's still looking?