Whitney

I could be wrong, but despite how popular Rhianna may be, I doubt that twenty years from now, anyone will be saying that they remember where they were the first time they heard "Rude Boy."

Although both "Rude Boy" and a song like "Didn't We Almost Have It All" may both be considered pop songs, only one of them is the song my parents refer to as "their divorce song."

A lot of singers give people break-up songs, and fall in love songs, but to give someone a divorce song?

That's saying something.

Her songs encapsulate experiences in a way that other songs don't.

And here's why she deserves so much credit:

The songs aren't all that good.

Think about "How Will I Know?" sung by anybody else--especially one of the singers around these days. Not to date myself, or sound like an old crony, but I doubt Miley Cyrus could make that song sound as joyful as Whitney did.

I'm not trying to take anything away from the writers or composers of a song, but clearly a singer has something special in them, when they can make the National Anthem a number one hit hundreds of years after it was written.

Anybody who doubts how hard a song it is needs only to watch recent incarnations to understand the magnitude of that achievement.

As sad as it is to say, Whitney had trouble evolving with the times. To me, she was always at her best in the eighties when pop could be as dramatic and jubilant as possible. When it wasn't just about sex and scandal.

The cool, laid-back "My Love is Your Love" Whitney had hits, but to me, she just wasn't the same as that young girl with the big hair singing about dancing with somebody who loves her.

That's how I'll remember her.

Marking time for everybody's life, making sense out of the worst divorce I've ever seen, and adding so much to songs that, on the surface, seem so frivolous.

She made pop music seem important.

I'm not sure there's a higher compliment to give than that.