Some Icons Tarnish

December 15th, 2010

A lot of people think that “once an icon, always an icon.” Sadly, that is not always the case as evidenced by the once-iconic Whitney Houston. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Houston is the “most awarded” female artist of all time with two Emmy Awards, six Grammy Awards, 16 Billboard Music Awards, and 22 American Music Awards among others that propelled her to 411 career awards (as of 2006). The star rose to prominence in 1985 and 1986 with reviews attributing her as “one of the most exciting new voices in years.” Her career continued to climb to the stratosphere until the years 2000 2005 when drug allegations and personal struggles (as a result of her marriage to singer Bobby Brown) skyrocketed. These struggles were clearly evidenced during live interviews where Houston uttered such lines as “crack is whack,” even though she later admitted to using other substances. From that point on it seems that Houston became a bit of a joke and sadly,even her voice began to suffer during her downfall. Unfortunately, Houston’s performance in Brisbane, Australia to a sold-out crowd was called a “train wreck.” Maybe Houston should have been paying closer attention to the anti-narcotics ad campaign of the 80′s with the tagline “this is your brain on drugs” since she seems to have suffered during the same time span from “this is your voice on drugs.”