Exactly 36 years ago, Whitney Houston released a single now considered "One of the Greatest Songs of All Time"

Fantastic time capsule of 80s pop, saccharine, soulless and tailor-made for cross-cultural consumption. Saved only by one of the best voices in popular music history.

It takes me back to riding around in my first car - a totally square huge 4 door used green volvo. I would hand roll the windows down, light my Marlboro Light 100 with the car lighter and ashes would burn my thighs ( from the lighter) and crank this song up as loud as my tinny car radio would go. To me this was a totally happy song. It made me feel like anything was possible. Poor Whitney.

It WAS a fun song to hear, but now it’s been beat into the ground by the GayGays. The Girly Gays have a playlist of 500 songs that MUST be playing at all times, and the list cannot be deviated from or they’ll faint and possibly die.

Other approved selections are: any top 40 charted single by Britney or Dua Lipa or RiRi.

Mediocre to fair pop music sung by a dynamite singer who continued to record a lot of songs and music that was not up to her talent. She shined best with gospel at least until she self destructed. That said, her pop recordings were enormously successful- but they are of an era, not timeless music- which she could have recorded. People will be listening to other great singers for as long as technology allows: Sinatra, King Cole, Ella, Aretha, Streisand, Garland, Ronstadt, Mitchell, Holiday etc because they recorded great music, timeless music. Whitney did not.

R4 You make some valid points. However, if WH recorded music that was only up to her talent (for example, Gospel music) she would have never become the superstar she became. Her album producers and Clive Davis may not have chosen the 'best music' for her, but they did choose what was best to launch her career in the 1980s.

But is it a bop?

I don’t remember it being that big of a deal.

I remember going out for drinks after work one night that summer with my work mates - we worked the event rooms at a high-end restaurant in Chicago - and surprisingly we all got up and danced to it. I think we were at the local gay bar.

I love this song and listening takes me back to my childhood days of watching MTV music videos. I thought Whitney looked beautiful during the video.

She recorded I'm Your Baby Tonight in one take because she wanted to go shopping.

I remember when 'I'm Your Baby Tonight' was released, it was a completely different sound from her two previous hit albums "Whitney Houston" and "Whitney". In different interviews later on, Houston said she wanted to prove she was able to sing 'black music' for her audience, and not be known as 'Whitey Houston' - her black fans condemned her for playing it safe to white audiences with her sugar-pop albums.

One of my favorite '80s songs. I first heard it at a gay dance in the summer of 1987, after having been dumped earlier in the week by a guy I'd hoped would be my "somebody who loves me." I danced to it with my best lesbian friend.

I never bought a copy. Who wanted the memory? But now I hear it from time to time when it autoplays on You Tube. I finished 1987 with Carly Simon's Coming Around Again CD. And Mahler.

You know how in the Fifties they would take Chuck Berry songs and then have them released again by Pat Boone for the consumption of the white kids? In the Eighties, they made it simpler with Whitney by in effect turning Chuck Berry directly into Pat Boone.

Scott Wise is fucking hot in that video.

Here's a cover version that slows the tempo of the song, by Matt Alber.

I love both versions. Only got to see it live by Alber.

According to many reports, the song Houston passed on was "Waiting for a Star to Fall" which was written just for her, and recorded "I Wanna Dance.." instead. Arista CEO Clive Davis thought the song was all wrong for Whitney and told her to pass it up. "Waiting.." but she didn't like the song at all. The writers of the song recorded it themselves under the name "Boy Meets Girl" and had a huge hit with it in the summer of 1988.