Houston's 1985 debut album Whitney Houston became the best-selling debut album by a female act at the time of its release.
The album was named Rolling Stone's best album of 1986, and was ranked at number 254 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
Her second studio album Whitney (1987) became the first album by a female artist to debut at number one on the Billboard 200 albums chart.
In February 1991, Houston released The Star Spangled Banner performance from Super Bowl XXV as a single, and made it Top 20 hit, which was the first and only rendition of the US national anthem to achieve that feat since 1958 when the Billboard Hot 100 chart was first released.
RIAA certified the single Gold in April 1991 (re-certified Platinum in 2001). According to Nielsen SoundScan, as of 2007, the single sold 1.2 million copies in the U.S. alone.
The Bodyguard, the soundtrack from her film debut, was released in November 1992. The album contains tracks by other recording artists but is considered a Whitney Houston album by the Billboard and the RIAA.
The soundtrack topped the Billboard 200 for twenty non-consecutive weeks, the longest tenure by any album on the Billboard 200 chart in the Nielsen SoundScan era.
It was also reached the number one on the albums chart in almost all countries.
The album was certified 17× Platinum in the United States and sold over 44 million copies worldwide, becoming the best-selling soundtrack album ever and one of the top 5 best-selling albums of all time.
The lead single from the soundtrack, I Will Always Love You, topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart for a then-record-breaking fourteen weeks and was certified 4× Platinum by the RIAA, making her the first and only female artist to reach the level before the digital single era.
On February 11, 2012, Houston was found dead in her guest room at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, in Beverly Hills, California, of causes not immediately known.
News of her death, the day before and after the 2012 Grammy Awards, featured prominently in American and international media.
