I'm Your Baby Tonight is the third studio album by American singer Whitney Houston. It was released on November 6, 1990, by Arista Records. Released during a time black music critics accused Houston of neglecting her R&B and soul music roots following the release of her pop-heavy eponymous second album, Whitney, three years before, the album signaled a change in Houston's musical direction as she attained creative control for the first time in her career and received an executive producer credit. The record incorporated the then-current popular sound of new jack swing music along with elements of hip-hop, funk and dance, which helped to shift Houston's focus from love ballads and occasional dance songs to creating a "firmer dance record". The album was further credited later as a "turning point" in Houston's career and which helped to cement her legacy in popular music.
Its sexually aggressive and assertive themes also took a more mature direction than on Houston's previous albums with songs such as the title track, "My Name Is Not Susan" and "I Belong to You". It was the first album to feature production from the team of Antonio "L.A." Reid and Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds, who would produce four of the album's songs including the title track, "Miracle" and "My Name Is Not Susan", while Houston maintained her previous producer Narada Michael Walden on several other tracks with smaller contributions from Michael Masser, Luther Vandross and Stevie Wonder, the latter of whom Houston sung with on the album's only duet track, "We Didn't Know". In addition to vocally arranging every track, Houston also added to the production on the record on at least one track, the album closer, "I'm Knockin'".
Upon its release, I'm Your Baby Tonight received mixed to positive reviews from critics, with some complimenting the album's more earthy forms of black music, while others viewed this shift as superficial. The album became a global commercial success upon its release, reaching number three on the Billboard 200, whilst staying inside the top ten of that chart for 22 weeks. The same album topped the Top R&B Albums chart, Houston's first album to reach the pole position on that chart since her groundbreaking self-titled debut album, accumulating eight cumulative weeks atop the chart, outperforming the six-week run from her debut. Following its peaks on the Billboard 200 and Top R&B Albums chart, Houston became the first female artist to have their first three albums reach the top three on both charts. It would top the year-end 1991 lists of Billboard and Cashbox magazine as the top selling R&B album of the year. It would become Houston's third consecutive multi-platinum album in the United States, eventually selling more than four million copies alone in the country and being certified platinum four times by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
The album would go on to win four Billboard Music Awards, including Top R&B Album, at the second annual ceremony and earned the American Music Award nomination for Favorite Soul/R&B Album as well as the Soul Train Music Award nomination for Best Female R&B/Soul Album in 1992 as well as several NAACP Image Award nominations and the American Black Achievement Award as the top music artist of the year.
In addition to its US success, the album was also a worldwide hit, reaching the top ten in 18 other countries and peaked at number two on the European Top 100 Albums chart, earning her third top five album on that chart, while being certified platinum in the UK, Canada, Australia, Germany, France and the Netherlands, as well as multi-platinum in Japan and Spain, eventually being certified in over 13 countries and would reach global sales of over ten million copies, becoming one of the best-selling female albums of all time.
I'm Your Baby Tonight produced six singles. Its lead single, the title track, hit number one in four countries, including the US Billboard Hot 100 and reached the top ten in 13 other countries and earning a Grammy Award nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 1991. "All the Man That I Need" followed the title track to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and helped to establish a chart record for Houston being the first woman to have multiple chart-toppers off three or more albums while also achieving international success, topping the Canadian RPM chart and hitting the top 20 in the UK; it would be nominated for the Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 1992. "Miracle" also achieved US success, peaking inside the top ten, while "My Name Is Not Susan" reached the top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100.
The remaining two singles — "I Belong to You" and "We Didn't Know" — was only released to R&B retail and radio where it found R&B chart success, both peaking inside the top 20 while the former reached the R&B top ten and earned a Grammy nomination for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance. To further promote the album, Houston embarked on her third concert tour, titled the I'm Your Baby Tonight World Tour, from March 1991 until October 1991. During promotion of the album, Houston's status was raised by her Super Bowl XXV appearance where she performed her rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" and the HBO TV special, Welcome Home Heroes with Whitney Houston, which included songs from the album performed and viewed by over 50 million viewers.
Background
In 1987, Whitney Houston released her sophomore album, Whitney, which was aimed to give her a more accessible pop audience in contrast to the R&B and love ballad material composed on Houston's self-titled debut (1985). The record made history for Houston as she became the first female artist to debut at number one on the Billboard 200 and produced four consecutive number one singles on the Billboard Hot 100 — a record at a time for a female artist. The album also cemented her reputation as a global superstar, with her two albums selling a combined thirty million units by 1989. Her successful crossover blend of pop, R&B and gospel helped Houston to break racial barriers on pop radio stations and MTV, which along with the commercial breakthrough of Michael Jackson, led to the music industry enjoying "the best time for crossover artists since the height of disco in the mid-to-late '70s", according to journalist Frank Rizzo in 1987.
Despite this, however, some black critics began to voice their disapproval of Houston's music, especially with her sophomore release, Whitney, which included the number-one hits "I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)" and "So Emotional". These critics accused the singer of "selling out" by neglecting black musical influences in favor of music intended to appeal to white audiences. They also felt that her records lacked the soul of her live performances of the same songs. Houston's name was jeered by some in the audience at the Soul Train Music Awards ceremonies of 1988 and 1989 after her name was announced as nominee in several categories.
Houston defended herself against the criticism telling Essence magazine in 1990, "If you're gonna have a long career, there's a certain way to do it and I did it that way. I'm not ashamed of it." Later on, Houston steadfastly denied claims that her R&B base had deserted her to Billboard magazine. Around this time period, Houston was also criticized for her supposed "lack of rhythm", as displayed in the In Living Color parody "Whitney Houston's Rhythmless Nation", in which "Houston" (played in the skit by Kim Wayans) sang to the tune of Janet Jackson's "Rhythm Nation" and demonstrated her struggles to dance. Houston was annoyed by the skit, saying "don't say I don't have soul or what you consider to be 'blackness'... I know what my color is. I was raised in a black community with black people, so that has never been a thing with me."
Houston and label head Clive Davis had discussed plans to go into a more urban direction as early as the spring of 1988 as popular music was starting to embrace a new urban pop genre called new jack swing. Even as her sophomore album Whitney was blanketing airwaves that year, music industry insiders were speculating that "[t]here is talk her next album will have a 'black direction'."
Houston decided to assert more creative control of her music and became an executive producer for the first time on an album. At the time, Houston was seen by some in the music industry as an artist that was being controlled by Davis, an accusation Houston took offense to. In later years, Houston remarked to Rolling Stone, "I don't like it when they see me as this little person who doesn't know what to do with herself -- like I have no idea what I want, like I'm a puppet and Clive's got the strings." Houston convinced Davis to hire the new jack swing production team of L.A. Reid and Babyface, citing their work on artists such as Bobby Brown, Karyn White and The Whispers among others.
Music and production
For more than a year, following the end of her Moment of Truth World Tour in November 1988, Houston took a break from public events with few occasions. During the break, Houston contributed vocals to two songs on gospel sibling duo BeBe & CeCe Winans' breakthrough album Heaven. She also contributed duet vocals on Aretha Franklin's Through the Storm on the song "It Isn't, It Wasn't, It Ain't Never Gonna Be", which became a moderate Billboard hit, peaking inside the top 50 of the Billboard Hot 100 and reached the top five of the Billboard Hot Black Singles chart in 1989, later earning the pair a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals at the 32nd Annual Grammy Awards. With encouragement from BeBe Winans, Houston co-composed the dance song, "Takin' a Chance", in which Houston took advantage of adding more gospel vocal embellishments than she had been allowed to. Houston later sent the song to Sanyo in Japan and filmed commercials for the Japanese audience. In October 1989, the song was issued as a Japan-only single and found success on its Oricon Singles Chart.
Work on the album began in October 1989 with longtime collaborator Narada Michael Walden, primarily at Manhattan's Right Track Recording. Before the recording, Walden and frequent collaborator Preston Glass presented five compositions that were subsequently rejected by Arista Records brass, which surprised Walden, whose work on the Whitney album had led him to win the Grammy Award for Producer of the Year at the 30th Annual Grammy Awards. Arista eventually allowed Walden to produce at least six songs submitted to the label.
One of the first songs recorded was "Feels So Good", followed by "I Belong to You". The songs, which Walden arranged in a quiet storm format, were influenced by Motown artist Marvin Gaye. The songs were recorded in the middle of Houston's breakup with comedic actor Eddie Murphy. By the time the pair reconvened to record "All the Man That I Need", a song originally recorded by Linda Clifford that December, however, he said the "fog" that Houston was under had left her and she was happier, which Walden later learned was due to her growing relationship with fellow pop singer Bobby Brown.
"All the Man That I Need" (originally titled "All the Man I Need") had been pitched to Houston back in 1987 by its co-writer Dean Pitchford. But at the time it couldn't be recorded because Houston had finished work on the Whitney album. Houston and Walden eventually worked on three more recordings for the album -- "Dancin' on the Smooth Edge", a jazz-inflected Sam Dees number called "Lover for Life" and a funk and gospel-inspired rendition of Steve Winwood's "Higher Love".