The Preacher's Wife Soundtrack

Like The Bodyguard and Waiting to Exhale before it, The Preacher's Wife is a soundtrack that also functions as a Whitney Houston album, but that's where the similarity ends. Where The Bodyguard was adult contemporary pop at its finest and Waiting to Exhale was a virtual encyclopedia of mid-'90s mainstream black pop, The Preacher's Wife is an attempt at gospel-soul. Much of the music on the soundtrack was composed by Babyface, who normally can pull off such fusion. Babyface's pop material and David Foster's production of Houston's "I Believe in You and Me" are the most successful cuts, bar Kirk Franklin's exuberant "Joy," which utterly puts the other gospel cuts on the album to shame. So, there are enough strong cuts to make The Preacher's Wife worthwhile, but anyone who is looking for Houston strutting like a diva will likely be disappointed. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi