When I was growing up my father worked in the electronics business and always came home with the trendiest gadgets and so my older sister and I were always the first kids on the block with a Walkman or some fresh new boombox or a LaserDisc player or a robotic dog or a CD player or what have you, and my first three CDs were Whitney Houston, Huey Lewis, and the “Top Gun” soundtrack, all of which would have made me a pretty righteous kid if I hadn’t been just a Genesis album away from being summarized by a Bret Easton Ellis novel.

I’ve apparently grown distant from my former self and forgotten amidst the passions of the present and my newfound love for Rihanna that not so long ago there were other pop diva goddesses who got mixed up with bad dudes named Brown who were also just as formative in my life.

And so in the service of personal and cultural memory I wish to inaugrate Whitney Houston Wednesdays™ on this blog with a track from my very first CD.

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Whitney Houston, “How Will I Know”