Whitney Houston

Not to trivialize what she's been through, but Whitney's comeback sounds like she was built to fall from grace and redeem herself. I Look to You is neither perfect nor athletically impressive. Like her now slightly rough voice, it is a raw and exquisitely flawed exercise in theatrical vulnerability, a mea culpa with a fab dance beat. Sometimes it falls on its face; elsewhere, it breaks your heart in deliciously dramatic ways (if "I Didn't Know My Own Strength" wasn't written with her legions of drag impersonators in mind, we'll eat our wigs). All right, Hollywood, she's ready for her biopic.