Whitney Houston

Authorship Breakdown 0 / 10 self-written

By the Numbers

Whitney Houston is the debut studio album by Whitney Houston, released in February 1985 on Arista Records and produced by Jermaine Jackson, Michael Masser, and Narada Michael Walden, the album that established Houston as the most commercially important female vocalist of the decade and demonstrated that a Black woman could sell pop records at a scale previously reserved for white pop artists or crossover veterans. Houston did not write any of the album's original material; the songs were provided by professional songwriters including Michael Masser, Gerry Goffin, George Merrill, and Shannon Rubicam, a pattern of outside songwriting that would characterize most of her catalog and reflect the industry structure of the period, in which Arista's Clive Davis exercised substantial control over material selection for major signings. 'Saving All My Love for You,' 'How Will I Know,' and 'Greatest Love of All' were the principal singles; all three reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100, making Whitney Houston the first debut album to generate three number-one singles in the United States. The album sold over 25 million copies worldwide, spent 14 weeks at number one on the Billboard 200, and won Houston the Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female. Whitney Houston is the best-selling debut album in music history and established the template, soaring, technically precise pop gospel, that would define the adult contemporary and R&B mainstream for the following decade.

Track Listing & Credits 10 tracks

Songwriter & Credit Spotlight 17 contributors

More from Whitney Houston

Sources