A lot has happened in the pop music world in the last nine days, so herewith follows a random scattering of music-related observations.

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Whitney Houston’s death really is a tragedy.  If anyone was ever blessed by the musical gods and pre-ordained for greatness, it was Whitney.   And yet, looking back on her recording career, I’m struck by how meager it was.  Just six studio albums in 27 years, and only three in the last 22 years.  Compare that with the Beatles, who at the peak of their popularity used to release three albums a year!

I also can’t help but think that, in spite of her tremendous commercial success, Whitney Houston was not well-served by the music industry.  Her first hit single, “Saving All My Love for You,” was indisputably her best and one of the few to show her extraordinary range and control.  Most of her other 80s hits blended into the synth-pop dominating radio at the time.  To see what I mean, compare “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” and “Let’s Hear it For the Boy.”  Houston’s vocal chops (not to mention charisma and sex appeal) leave one-hit wonder Deniece Williams in the dust, but suppose the singers were switched – would either song be dramatically different, or could a casual listener even tell the difference?

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I’m also struck by the similarities between Whitney Houston and her male counterpart from the era, Michael Jackson.  Both were child prodigies who made monster albums in their early to mid-20s, then sunk into excess and self degradation, recorded fitfully and died suddenly at or before age 50.  Michael Jackson’s demons seem pretty transparent –  a lost childhood he desperately wanted to recover and a truckload of sexual and racial confusion.  Whitney Houston’s are more mysterious; she appeared tranquil and, until the end (and unlike MJ), was usually composed and dignified in public.  I’m not trying to speak ill of the dead, but what does it is say about our culture when two of the biggest stars from the 80s both come to such sad and ignoble ends?

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Well, at least we still have Madonna.  In fact, judging from her halftime performance at last week’s Super Bowl, she appears to be living the life of Benjamin Button and getting more youthful as time goes by.  At this rate she’ll be appearing in Britney Spears’ late 90s school girl outfit when she headlines the halftime of Super Bowl LXX.

I was pleasantly surprised by Madonna’s half-time shtick, but that’s mostly because my expectations were so low.  Does anyone over 25 still look forward to the Super Bowl half-time anymore?  It usually ranks somewhere between a major disappointment and a train wreck.  I found this year’s extravaganza to be at the high end of that scale, bearable but not really enjoyable.  I should say that I missed MIA’s flip-off to the camera and, if I had seen it, I would downgrade my opinion a little.  Yes, it’s another sign of the vulgarization of our culture but, not to be flippant (ugh…horrible pun), it happened so quickly and was so peripheral to the overall stage show that it was close to being a tree-falling-in-the-forest-with-no one-there-to-hear-it event.

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I do, however, have some negative comments regarding Madonna’s other musical progeny included in the half-time troupe who later made an appearance at the Grammy Awards.  I’m speaking of the supremely untalented Nicky Minaj, who staged an execrable simulated exorcism during last night’s Awards ceremony.  For I believe the first time in my life, I am in complete agreement with Bill Donohue, President of the Catholic League; Minaj’s performance was an utterly offensive, explicitly Catholic-bashing exercise completely devoid of musicality or any redeeming virtue.  The sooner that Nicky Minaj fades back into the obscurity from which she came, the better off the world will be.

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The other big news from the Grammies is that the biggest numbers were performed by acts that first appeared more than 50 years ago – Paul McCartney and the Beach Boys.   It’s hard to exaggerate how unlikely this would have seemed when both artists were starting out.  For the same thing to have happened at the 1962 Grammy Awards, they would have had to exhume Ma Rainey and the Carter Family.  When will America’s tastemakers finally lose their infatuation with the 1960s – when the last Baby Boomer expires?  Or maybe, as Simon Reynolds suggests in his fascinating book Retromania, the issue is that there’s so much material from the past preserved in easily-accessible digital form that our culture is caught up in reprocessing and recycling what is old rather than creating anything new.

It also makes you wonder what the Grammies will be like decades from now.  In 20 years, will there be a musical collage of the greatest hits of Madonna, or U2?  Thirty years from now, will the Grammies honor the music of Dave Matthews or Jay-Z?  Just how much of the music being produced today will stand the test of time?

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I realize this has been a pretty negative set of observations, so let me try to close on a positive note by congratulating Adele, the British soul singer, who was the big winner from last night’s Grammies.   Adele is both very young and an old soul, and her appearance last night was the first since having an operation on her vocal chords.  She sings with power and passion and, unlike the Gaga-inspired poseurs and provocateurs, is not trying to make a name in the industry simply by being bizarre.  Here’s to substance and real artistry rather than shallowness and fashion; let’s hope the future includes a lot more of Adele and a lot less Gaga, Minaj and Madonna.