church sound. she later brought it out with the movie and the soundtrack for the preacher s wife. that soundtrack allowed her to show her gospel range. masrk, one of the most surprising things among the praise for her talent, she endured criticism for not being too much of a pop singer and abandoning her roots. whitney houston was part of a generation of what i call black pop crossovers, michael jackson, eddie murphy, whitney houston. they were unprecedented, they had access to the main black performers didn t have in mainstream before. part of that was finding the right pitch for pop mainstream audience. it was the idea of whitney houston and clive davis to market her less as an r&b singer. they were careful to package r&b songs on her album but wanted to cross her over in ways they hadn t before. what you saw toward the end of the 1980s was really a lot of