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[From Fox 411] Whitney, Clive and More From the Continuing Saga Meanwhile, the story of Whitney Houston's new album, Just Whitney, remains a strange one. Released to the Internet for massive downloading on Friday, Just Whitney isn't supposed to be in stores until Nov. 26. You'd think the folks at Arista would be freaking out, but when I broke the news to them one executive replied, with a yawn: "Oh, every album is on the Web these days." Huh? One theory being bandied about is that Arista may be pulling an Usher on Whitney. To Whit: when they didn't like the album Usher delivered, it was suddenly released to the Web. Arista then claimed that they were scrapping it and starting over. The subsequent album was a big hit, and the former one disappeared into the ether. Is Just Whitney headed for that fate? Time will tell. Meanwhile, it seems that Whitney's former mentor, Clive Davis, is about to take on more responsibility at Bertelsmann. The story I've heard, reported elsewhere in different forms, is that the moribund RCA Records label will be merged into Davis' J Records, both part of the BMG family. Davis will probably run the combined labels from his gorgeous
midtown offices with the J staff and a few RCA people who will be left over. RCA doesn't
have many acts or much pizzazz at the moment, so Davis will be charged with working his
magic on it. First step: try to save Christina Aguilera from herself. NEWSFILE: 23 OCTOBER 2002 |