Sunday, February 12, 2012

Today the world lost an extremely talented entertainer. At 48 years old Whitney Houston was the Queen of Pop many of us grew up with. She was found dead in her hotel room on the eve of the Grammy Awards, leaving behind daughter Bobbi Kristina Houston.

Listen to our audio tribute montage below:

Born in 1963 in New Jersey, Whitney sold more the 170 million albums, singles and videos and holds the titled of the most awarded female act of all time according to the Guiness World Records. Including 2 Emmy's and 6 Grammy's are just some of her 413 awards.

Her top hits include How Will I know, I will always love you, Saving all my love for you, I Wanna dance with somebody, Greatest Love of All,  I Wanna Dance with Somebody, Didn't We Almost Have It All, So Emotional and Step by Step.

We will also remember her in movie classis, The Bodyguard, Waiting to Exhale and The Preachers Wife.

On the eve of America's biggest Music awards, The Grammy's, Whitney's death will see an outpouring of grief around the world.


Whitney Houston:

It took 2 years for Houston to make her first album after iconic music producer Clive Davis discovered her in a New York nightclub in 1983.

12 million copies of her debut album, titled "Whitney Houston," sold in the United States.

11.8 million - Number of "The Bodyguard" soundtrack units sold, making it the best-selling soundtrack in more than 20 years.

14 weeks - The period "I Will Always Love You" topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 1992, the second-longest reign in the chart's history.

4.5 million - The number of physical singles Whitney Houston's song, "I Will Always Love You, has sold since its release in 1992.

She had 7 consecutive No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 hits in the 1980s - from "Saving All My Love for You" and "Where Do Broken Hearts Go" - breaking a record earlier held by The Beatles and the Bee Gees.

79.6 million - Estimated number of those who watched Super Bowl XXV on January 27, 1991, where Houston's rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" became the gold standard for performing the national anthem, according to music critics.

$410,945,720 - Gross domestic and international sales from the 1992 movie "The Bodyguard," starring Houston and Kevin Costner.

Bobbi Kristina, born in 1993 after her marriage to New Edition singer Bobby Brown is Whitney's only child.

60 million TV viewers watched Houston star as the Fairy Godmother in an ABC reworking of Cinderella in 1997.

She won 6 Grammy awards over the course of her career, the last coming in 2000 for best female R&B performance for "It's Not Right But It's Okay".

411 - Awards total that she'd garnered as of 2006.

170 million - Albums, singles and videos that she sold over the course of her career.

Age 48 on Saturday, when she was pronounced dead in her fourth-floor room at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills.


Sources: Whitney Houston's official website; Nielsen; Boxofficemojo.com; Recording Industry Association of America