Whitney Houston's highly-anticipated album 'I Look to You' (Artista) will finally be arriving in stores September 1. Houston has been working on this album with Clive Davis since 2007 -- her first studio album in almost seven years. The album has an A-list roster of producers and writers (Swizz Beatz, Johnta Austin, Alicia Keys, R. Kelly, and Harvey Mason, Jr.) as well as Akon singing vocals with Houston on 'Like I Never Left.' The reviews are decent but quite mixed, so be sure to listen to the album on AOL Music's Free Free Full CD Listening Party (Please note- this listening party expires September 6th). You can also listen to select songs off the album (such as 'I Look to You' and 'Million Dollar Bill') on AOL Radio's Top R&B station.
Entertainment Weekly (B-): "Whitney Houston's first album in seven years, doesn't pretend to offer the unblemished 21-year-old we met on her smash 1985 debut, but it never truly lets listeners inside the heart and head of the woman she is today...Houston's famous voice, which now sounds husky and glottal, ....brings a gravity that the album's often generically worded ballads lack."USAToday (3.5/4): "It's loaded with tunes that are perfect for recapturing the magic that once made her a transcendent star... They provide her with beats and lyrics befitting someone making a fresh start...She clearly hasn't forgotten how to sing, imbuing the material with emotional power without a lot of overly dramatic vocal runs."
Chicago Tribune (2/4): "'I Look to You' begins promisingly... Houston gravitates toward songs that apply a we-shall-overcome universality to her personal struggles...'Nothin' But Love' written by [R] Kelly, serves as the album's centerpiece, the latest in a long line of slow-build ballads that has defined her career... [But] despite the machinations of top-tier producers and songwriters such as R. Kelly, Diane Warren, Akon, Stargate and David Foster, nothing else feels quite as elegantly ebullient. Nor does she ever cut loose."
Rolling Stone (3.5/5): "'I Look to You' is a modern soul record, a collection of sleek, often spunky, love songs that aim at something more immediate and tangible than nostalgia or catharsis: Houston wants back in the diva stakes."
