Althouse: Want to hear Whitney Houston's exuberant 80s pop song "How Will I Know" slowed way down, sad, and sung by a guy?

June 21, 2014

Want to hear Whitney Houston's exuberant 80s pop song "How Will I Know" slowed way down, sad, and sung by a guy?

I thought not, but here it is anyway. I liked it.

For reference: here's Whitney.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...: That was surprisingly good.

Better than the original anyway.; 6/21/14, 4:49 PM
Barry Dauphin said...: Is there a version sung by David Mamet?; 6/21/14, 5:12 PM
Gahrie said...: Another example of the white man appropriating a Black person's work. His obvious intention is to denigrate Whitney and make money off of her talent. I denounce him, and demand that he immediately pay Bobby Brown reparations.

That said, a beautiful if quirky rendition.; 6/21/14, 5:21 PM
YoungHegelian said...: I would be more inclined to enjoy Sam Smith's rendition if it wasn't purged in the most PC-Stalinist way of any reference to gender in terms of nouns & pronouns. I feel like I'm not hearing a pop song, I'm getting played the LGBTQ Internationale.

Jeezus, we straights survived the Village People & Sylvester. We can survive the original version of "How Will I know" sung by a guy.; 6/21/14, 5:26 PM
Ron said...: I prefer Diamanda Galas' sad, goth version of "My World Is Empty Without You Babe"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrDwpp7BeR8; 6/21/14, 5:48 PM
Moose said...: Would have sounded better in Puddles and done it...; 6/21/14, 5:57 PM
fivewheels said...: Isn't this pretty much like putting a trans person in Oleanna? Not legally, but morally/artistically?

And you can take that as positive or negative, I suppose.; 6/21/14, 6:21 PM
Gahrie said...: Isn't this pretty much like putting a trans person in Oleanna?

No...the equivilent would be a quirky performance by a female actor in the play.; 6/21/14, 7:29 PM
Anthony said...: For the old farts: Take a 45 of Melissa Manchester's "Don't Cry Out Loud", and play it at 33. Suddenly, it's a gay torch song.

If you want your gender-bending without technological assistance, listen to Joan Jett do " Crimson and Clover".; 6/21/14, 9:52 PM
gearweasle said...: Then there's this well-known classic rendition to a lesser known one: Shirley Bassey's Goldfinger theme VS
Anthony Newley's creep-tastic version.

Bassey:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy_PJODH3p0
Newley: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foypp2Kh6cY

The Wikipedia entry for the goings-on surrounding the recording of "Goldfinger(song)" is a hoot, too.; 6/21/14, 10:03 PM
eddie willers said...: I was watching the NBC show "The Blacklist" in closed captioning (which sometimes runs a little ahead of the action) when I saw it say "Jolene plays".

I told the people watching the show with me, "I hope they play Dolly Parton's version", but it was this sad, beautiful, male voice.

Come to find out later that it WAS Dolly's version!

Now called Slow Ass Jolene.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzHbe0AapaE; 6/21/14, 10:24 PM
Gahrie said...: I'm not a big fan of hers generally...but I like KD Lang's version of Crying as much as I like Orbison's.; 6/22/14, 12:00 AM