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Battle of the divas: Whitney, Mariah, Leona, Shakira - who'll come out on top?
11.09.09
Howler: Colombian siren Shakira
One-off style: Whitney Houston
Big belter: Mariah Carey knows what to do with a tune
Latest diva: Leona Lewis releases her new album in November
In a rare period of pop dominated by female singers, it was inevitable that the old-school big belters would want to muscle in.
This autumn will be characterised by the return of the divas, the purported pinnacle of female singing evolution. The silverback gorillas of the music world, they emote on an interplanetary scale, hair perpetually billowing, never far from a towering torch song.
Their natural habitat is amid the grand-scale showiness of Las Vegas, where Mariah Carey plays her first concert since 2006 this evening.
For someone with such a remarkable natural voice, it's surprising she's gone for the fashionable robotics of the Auto-Tune sound on her new single, Obsessed, but it helps her stay current — no doubt there are plenty of the familiar tearjerking ballads joining it on her forthcoming album.
Whitney Houston stays much more traditional on her long-awaited comeback album, which has just become her first US number one since 1993. Her new song, I Didn't Know My Own Strength, is a self-help weepy, custom-built for Bridget Jones types to howl along to while wolfing down the Häagen-Dazs.
Houston's mini-me, the huge-selling X Factor winner Leona Lewis, also comes back in November. Her new track, Happy, is yet another grand-scale ballad and a surefire number one.
The return of Shakira is probably the best cause for celebration, however. The Colombian siren combines quality pop with the air of genuine bonkersness essential to all the finest divas. Her new single, She Wolf, has a video featuring the weirdest dancing I've seen in some years, animalistic howling and the remarkable line: “Darling it is no joke, this is lycanthropy.”
In truth, these ladies all have something to offer. But how does it all stack up — who will win the great battle of the divas?
WHITNEY HOUSTON
Vocal acrobatics: 4/5. Still packs a mighty wallop, most notably on the skyscraping chorus of I Will Always Love You, though recent troubles may have dulled her vocal fire.
Elaborate outfits: 2/5. Never known for her style, she looks far from sexy on the cover of the new album, though it's better than some of the tabloid shots during her lowest ebb.
Ridiculous demands: 3/5. Not so nutty really, though she did require an armoured car to take her on a tour of south-east Asia in 2004.
Rocky relationships: 5/5. Married to jailbird Bobby Brown from 1992 to 2007, their relationship was the subject of many drug rumours. He was charged with misdemeanour battery for allegedly striking her in 2003.
Quotability: 4/5. Most infamously: “We don't do crack… Crack is wack.”
Fragrance: 0/5. None to date.
New album: I Look to You, released 19 October on Arista.
SHAKIRA
Vocal acrobatics: 3/5. More of a semi-yodel than the full hairdryer effect.
Elaborate outfits: 4/5. Not a big fan of clothes. Favours leotards in her latest video. Midriff exposed whatever the weather.
Ridiculous demands: 2/5. “Six bananas, five peaches and three mangoes” were required before one gig.
Rocky relationships: 2/5. Engaged forever to Antonio de la Rúa, son of the former president of Argentina. Almost certainly the only diva to count a Nobel Prize-winning author among her biggest fans, Gabriel Garcia Márquez.
Quotability: 5/5. Who could forget Whenever, Wherever's classic couplet: “Lucky that my breasts are small and humble/So you don't confuse them with mountains”?
Fragrance: 4/5. Amuleto, which reflects “an ethnic mixture of her soul and Latin sensuality, with exotic Arabian passion”.
New album: She Wolf, released
12 October on RCA.
LEONA LEWIS
Vocal acrobatics: 4/5. So far ahead of her X Factor competitors it was embarrassing.
Elaborate outfits: 2/5. Every day's a wedding day for Leona. It's one posh gown after another.
Ridiculous demands: 1/5. “I don't need anything special to be happy. I have everything I need,” she says. Boring!
Rocky relationships: 1/5. Boyfriend Lou Al-Chamaa is an electrician from Hackney she has known since she was 10.
Quotability: 1/5. “I'm not a loud, extravagant person. I'm never going to be that.” As bland as a professional golfer.
Fragrance: 3/5. Leona Lewis, an ethical perfume including blood orange, “passion-filled musk” and “bewildering currant”.
New album: Echo, released 16 November on Sony.
MARIAH CAREY
Vocal acrobatics: 5/5. A five-octave range. That's a lot of notes.
Elaborate outfits: 3/5. Favours the leggy and busty, or simply a strategically placed hat on the Touch My Body single sleeve.
Ridiculous demands: 4/5. Ferries her Jack Russell around by chauffeur-driven Mercedes, though the believable notion that she “doesn't do stairs” is sadly a myth.
Rocky relationships: 4/5. Side Effects, a song about her marriage to Tommy Mottola, mentions “violent times”.
Quotability: 4/5. “Butterflies follow me wherever I go.”
Fragrance: 5/5. M, combining incense, tiara flower and marshmallow, “embodies Mariah's sensuality, beauty and glamour”.
New album: Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel, released 28 September on Mercury.
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Reader views (5)
Watch out Mooriah- Leonas gonna sink you. Mariahs grating vocals against Leonas pitch perfect voice. Ill take Leona any day. Bye Bye Mooriah.
- Darren, Essex, UK
Why haven't the public been able to listen to the Leona Lewis album she made before she went on X factor ? Is it that embarrassing ? Or is it that Simon Cowell can't bear to lose a penny of her vast revenues ? We need to know.
- Keith Price, Luton England
Mariah Carey all the way! Amazing how she is able to stay relavant after a decade and more... The new album is hot!
- Lottie, London
"Old school big belters"? Au contraire. The yelling out of great galumphing pseudo ballads by melisma crazed so called "divas" is very much a product of the last fifteen or so years. Listen to the great songstresses - Ella, Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington, Peggy Lee - to hear songs as they should be sung. Billie Holiday could invest more emotion in three notes than Mariah Carey could in a whole career.
And even if the old jazz greats are not to taste just listen to how Aretha or Gladys Knight could coax a song to a perfect end.
And the genuine divas? Sure Judy Garland, Barbra, even "our Shirl', could go magnificently full out when it was necessary, but never at the expense of the song. Why? simply because they understood, loved and respected what they were singing. And we the audience were the grateful beneficiaries.
And why are the "new belters" so second rate? After all their voices are often amazing instruments (I always thought Whitney had a great voice). Simple really. They can hit all the notes, they usually have an astonishing range and can exploit every vocal trick. But they don't know how phrase, how to interpret, how to give meaning to a lyric. In short they don't know how to sing.
It's the difference between ability (of which they have a great deal) and talent (of which they have not so much).
- Steve, London, UK
You've given Mariah 5/5 for vocals? hahaha..You obviously haven't heard her sing since the early 90s..Her voice is basically gone now. Leona, by far, has the best vocals out of these 4.
- Bobby, London, England
