The Beat: Whitney’s back, but do we care?

MELISSA RUGGIERITimes-Dispatch music columnist Fans of newly sentenced Chris Brown will have to decide if they're ready to forgive him.

But Whitney Houston's fans will have to decide how much they still care.

On Monday, the pop diva, at one time unchallenged and unparalleled in her vocal abilities, returns with "I Look to You," her first studio album in seven years.

Is anybody listening?

Radio play for the title track, the R. Kellypenned swooping ballad aimed directly at Houston's middle-aged fan core, has been tepid, and, according to radio station research site All Access, the song is already dipping on the urban airplay charts.

Dee Dee Renee, at Richmond's R&B and classic soul station WKJS ("Kiss" 105.7-FM), said the song hasn't been requested as much as she thought it would.

"We had our ears and hearts set on a Whitney from back then, and when people didn't get that, it was hard to accept," Renee said.

But she also thinks that the rest of the album will bode better for the singer.

"I think once [listeners] hear the other cuts on the CD, we'll get more requests," she said.

Renee's intuition seems correct, given that the second single, "Million Dollar Bill," ironically written by Houston heir Alicia Keys, is enjoying a smooth ride up the Top40 chart, with about 130 spins added nationwide this week.

The glossy R&B thumper probably won't pull a "Believe" and catapult Houston into a new generation, as happened with Cher in 2000. But the song -- like all of the slickly produced uptempo offerings on the album will make the minivan moms feel just hip enough . . . that is, if they're still interested in the reformed singer.

"I Look to You," the album, is a perfectly respectable collection of songs, but everyone knows that Houston's comeback is about much more than music.

On Sept. 14, she'll sit down with Oprah and rehash the past eight or nine years of her life, when her well-publicized drug addictions and marriage to R&B troublemaker Bobby Brown didn't just derail her career but nearly killed her.

Fans will have to decide if they're ready to forget about the emaciated "crack is whack" Whitney of 2002 and embrace her attempt at relevancy.

But even though we deify our idols, Houston's descent isn't a matter of forgiveness. She doesn't owe the public an apology for self-destructing. The test will be whether her millions of fans can relegate the Houston of the flirty peek-a-boo tank tops and a voice that was a luminous, limber instrument to their memory files while they work on accepting this flawed-yet-mended version.

It's certainly impossible to listen to "I Look to You" without being walloped by the distressing realization that Houston's voice no longer soars with lightweight mellifluousness.

Of course, age naturally affects a singer's vocal cords -- a listen to Barbra Streisand's new single, "Here's to Life," though, might make you think otherwise -- but no one, 46-year-old Houston included, will deny that this new muscularity worming through her tone isn't at least partially the result of drug abuse.

Her range is mostly undamaged, but an unfamiliar rasp is prominent, whether she's climbing through Leon Russell's "A Song for You" until it morphs into a sparkly dance-floor pumper or fighting to convey hope and her trust in faith on "I Didn't Know My Own Strength."

That song, written by queen balladeer Diane Warren and produced by David Foster, is clearly intended as the album's centerpiece, Houston's rallying cry that she'll surely perform on TV appearances and quote extensively.

And for many, the song's cascade of clichés won't be grating, but inspirational. It's three minutes and 39 seconds of Houston promising that if she can crash and tumble and still hold her head high, if she can survive the pain that greeted her in her darkest hour, then, well, who can't?

But first, they have to be listening.

Contact Melissa Ruggieri at (804) 649-6120 or .