Member-only story
“Higher Love” — Kygo and Whitney Houston
For some, the idea of remixing the work of a classic artist is an anathema. When done well, I quite like it.
Music never stays the same…in fact that’s one of the things I like most about it. Music evolves over time.
Even some of the people who complain about remixes and updated versions don’t realise that some of the “classics” they’re very firmly wedded to weren’t always the first version of songs they love either. Surprisingly, they’re often covers and for iconic artists like Frank Sinatra or Ella Fitzgerald, often the version of their classics remembered today is the third or fourth time they recorded the same song over the years.
Lately Norwegian DJ Kygo has been riding high in the charts with his reworked version of Whitney Houston’s recording of “Higher Love”.
Normally this would have attracted howls of protest, but I think Kygo got away with it because “Higher Love” wasn’t an especially well-known Whitney Houston track in the first place. It originally appeared as a bonus track on a 1990 Japan-only album of hers. I couldn’t imagine someone getting away with a remix of “I Will Always Love You” quite so easily…
However Whitney Houston was not the first artist to record “Higher Love”. That was Steve Winwood back in 1986, who also wrote the song, alongside Will Jennings.
