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Records
U.S. Sales records are certified by the RIAA and can be considered accurate. U.S. chart positions are official through Billboard Magazine. However, world sales are a close estimate, as no process exists that certifies global sales.
Sales records
- In 1994, Houston received an award
from the World Music Awards show, for being the "best-selling
artist of the era". To date she has sold over 83 million
records in the U.S., and over 184 million worldwide.
- Houston's The Bodyguard was the
first pop album in Korea to sell over a million copies.
- The world's biggest selling soundtrack
is The Bodyguard with over thirty-seven million units sold.
It also ranks as the second best-selling female album of all time
(behind only Shania Twain's Come on Over).
- Whitney has fourteen gold singles in
the United States, behind only Madonna among female aritsts.
- The world's best selling debut album
by a female is Whitney Houston, with over twenty-four million
copies sold.
- Houston is the first female artist to
have two diamond albums (as of January 1994, both Whitney Houston
and The Bodyguard were over ten times platinum). To date,
Houston, Madonna, Britney Spears, Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, Shania
Twain, and The Dixie Chicks are the only female artists with
multiple diamond albums.
- "I Will Always Love You" is
the best-selling single by a female artist, and the biggest-selling
non-charity single of all time, with world sales of nearly nine
million copies.
- The Bodyguard was the world's
largest selling album of the 1990s with over thirty-three million
copies sold from 1992 to 1999.
- The largest initial certification of
any album by the RIAA was for The Bodyguard, whose first
certification was for sales of over six million copies.
- Houston is the only female artist to
have three albums sell over nine million copies each: Whitney
Houston, Whitney, and The Bodyguard.
- In the 1990s, Houston was the
best-selling soundtrack artist in the U.S., with her three
soundtracks selling over twenty-five million copies in the United
States throughout the decade.
- The Preacher's Wife soundtrack
is the best-selling gospel album of all time.
- Houston's version of "The Star
Spangled Banner" is the only version to be certified platinum.
- Houston holds the record for highest
one week-single sales of 632,000 copies of "I Will Always Love
You" in December 1992.
Chart records
- The longest stay at number one from a
solo song is Houston's "I Will Always Love You", though
tied with Elton John's "Candle in the Wind 1997/Something About
the Way You Look Tonight" and Mariah Carey's "We Belong
Together" with fourteen weeks.
- The first album by a female to debut
at number one on the Billboard 200 was 1987's Whitney.
- "The Bodyguard" sold a
million copies in the final week of 1992 — at the time it set a
record for the most albums sold in a single week. The record was
broken in 1998 and again in 1999, but this was due to changes in the
way the Billboard 200 was compiled, adding extras days' sales for
Garth Brooks and Backstreet Boys. More recently, 'N Sync, Britney
Spears, and Eminem have followed in the million-plus league.
- "Exhale (Shoop Shoop)" was
the third single ever to debut at number one on the Billboard Hot
100.
- After spending one week at number one,
"Exhale (Shoop Shoop)" spent the next eleven weeks at
number two, the longest number-two stay in Hot 100 history.
- Houston has the longest stay at number
one on the Billboard Top Gospel Albums Chart, when "The
Preacher's Wife" remained at number one for twenty-six weeks.
- Houston is the only artist to claim
seven consecutive number-one singles that charted on the Hot 100.
- Whitney Houston's albums have spent
fifty weeks at number one on the Billboard 200, more than any other
female artist.
Other records
- Houston has won twenty-one American
Music Awards, more than any other female, and second only to
Alabama's twenty-two awards.
- Houston has entered the Billboard Hot
100 every year from 1985 until 2003.
- Houston is the only artist with at
least one Grammy, Emmy, MTV Video Music Award, MTV Movie Award,
People's Choice Award, and Billboard Music Award to their name.
- Whitney Houston won a record five
World Music Awards at the ceremony in 1994, equalled only by Michael
Jackson at the 1996 ceremony.
- Whitney Houston is the most covered
artist on the TV Show American Idol with over 1,150 of 70,000
auditions being songs of hers during the show's third season.
See also:
 Discography
,
Singles
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