*** Whitney Houston

MY LOVE IS YOUR LOVE

(Arista)

You may be surprised to hear My Love Is Your Love touted as Whitney Houston's first new album in eight years. After all, Houston has been delivering new singles to radio throughout the '90s, including the megahit "I Will Always Love You." But like all of the actress/singer's post-'90s recordings, that tune was merely part of a soundtrack. My Love Is Your Love does feature one film tie-in: the overwrought Mariah Carey duet "When You Believe" (also heard on one of the three Prince of Egypt soundtracks and on Carey's new #1's). Yet the rest of this album finds Houston plugging into contemporary R&B currents with the help of some of today's "hottest producers" -- Monica/Brandy hitmaker Rodney Jerkins, Fugees Wyclef Jean and Lauren Hill, Missy Elliott, Babyface -- rather than soundtracking. In a sense it's her return from the sacred (her 1996 pop-gospel soundtrack The Preacher's Wife) to the profane, from the church to the street, with Jerkins (the architect of "The Boy Is Mine") putting words in her mouth about cheating men on the percolating "It's Not Right But It's Okay" and setting up a guarded seduction on the hip-hopping "If I Told You That." Not to mention Elliott, who throws a few "ho's" into "In My Business." Houston doesn't write her own songs, so there's no point in dissecting the lyrics for clues about her personal life. But the performances are so effortlessly convincing that it's hard to resist the temptation.

-- Matt Ashare