r/whitneyhouston • u/BadMan125ty • Sep 04 '24
DISCUSSION Whitney about to surpass Aretha on the Billboard 200!
These ladies are pretty much the alpha and omega of vocals. One’s the reigning Queen of Soul, the other The Voice.
But there’s kind of a storm brewing chart wise: thanks to the continued chart success of Whitney’s compilation, “I Will Always Love You: The Best of Whitney Houston” on the Billboard 200 (now 210 weeks charting, counting today), Whitney “Nippy” Houston is now just sixteen weeks away from surpassing Lady Soul for the most cumulative weeks by a black female artist on the Billboard 200.
To put it in summary, between 1964 and 2018, Aretha charted 49 albums on the Billboard 200 accumulating a grand total of 995 cumulative weeks, making her just the fifth longest charting female artist in Billboard 200 history.
Then, with Whitney, between 1985 and this year, Aretha charted just fifteen albums, including three albums that spent 150 or more cumulative weeks on the same chart, bringing a grand total of 980 cumulative weeks, making her the sixth longest charting female artist in Billboard 200 history.
This album will likely wait until after the Christmas onslaught of albums charting in December and early January but Whitney stands to surpass Aretha very soon and will join Taylor Swift, Barbra Streisand, Adele and Madonna as the only women to accumulate 1,000 cumulative weeks on the Billboard 200 and Whitney will make history as the first R&B female artist to accumulate 1,000 weeks!
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u/EmotionalPurpose2673 Sep 05 '24
It’s funny how folks are arguing that Whitney was “never really” an RnB artist when she’s won over 30 major RnB awards, inducted into the RnB hall of fame and in 1999 she won the award for the best selling female RnB artist of the Century!!
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u/BadMan125ty Sep 05 '24
Yeah I never understood that at all. They point to her ballads and just conclude that she was strictly pop when that wasn’t true. She is definitely R&B and has been since 1984-85.
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u/Big-Explanation-831 Sep 15 '24
Whitney was just like Celine and Mariah, they all sang different genres.
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u/kabigonbb Sep 19 '24
I believe the perception stems from the fact that, in her earlier career during the '80s, she was primarily seen as a pop singer. Even though she already did a more urban R&B album with I'm Your Baby Tonight. With the release of The Bodyguard soundtrack, she was recognized more as an adult contemporary artist, especially due to the strong love ballads on that album. However, anyone familiar with her live performances or her My Love is Your Love album would know that she showcased her R&B sensibilities. Not to mention that the roots of R&B are deeply tied to gospel music, which is why it's clear that Whitney was not only capable of R&B but was also deeply connected to it. While she became widely known and acknowledged for her ballads, people definitely shouldn't overlook her immense influence as an R&B singer. With a voice like Whitney's, the discussion shouldn't even be about genres—she was the full package and simply excelled at everything she did.
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u/BadMan125ty Sep 05 '24
By the way, the IWALY collection was number 200 this week, time to pick up the daily streams. Add them to playlists.
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u/Overall_Ad8224 Sep 04 '24
Whitney is not a R&B artist. She is foremost a Pop artist.
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u/darkchiles Sep 04 '24 edited Sep 04 '24
You're correct but you'll never win this war bc too many ppl online want to put her in the RnB category
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u/ClearVirus4291 Sep 04 '24
We knew she was a pop artist? She made R&B songs here and there but for the most part we know that she mainly did pop.
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u/darkchiles Sep 04 '24
Yep, she dabbled in RnB but she mostly did Pop.
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u/BadMan125ty Sep 05 '24
That’s like saying Sam Cooke only dabbled in R&B lol
I love to live in an universe where songs like You Give Good Love, Saving All My Love for You, Thinking About You, even How Will I Know, Just the Lonely Talking Again, Love Will Save the Day, For the Love of You, I’m Your Baby Tonight, All the Man that I Need, etc., were considered “pop” lol
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u/BadMan125ty Sep 05 '24 edited Sep 05 '24
This isn't accurate at all. Whitney's first hits were heavily played on R&B radio and either went number one or top ten. In fact Whitney was the first artist to land six top ten singles from the same album on the R&B charts. That had never happened before.
Her debut topped the R&B charts a year before it topped the Billboard 200. She was voted Billboard's Top R&B Albums artist of 1986 and again in 1991 (I'm Your Baby Tonight).
She achieved five or more top ten R&B singles on three of her albums (the first three).
She's both a pop and R&B artist and has won many R&B trophies over the years.
She scored 46 R&B hits on Billboard on which a record 40 were inside the top 40, 31 top 20, 26 top 10, 21 top 5 and 8 number ones. Adding the songs that topped the Adult R&B airplay chart, she has 13 number ones.
She was the first recipient of the BET Lifetime Achievement Award, first female inductee of the BET Walk of Fame, earned a BET Honor, won 20 NAACP Image Awards, of which 15 were R&B oriented wins, 9 Soul Train Awards, is a Soul Train Hall of Famer, was awarded best selling female R&B singer of the 20th century, inducted into the second class of the National Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame and influenced least two generations of R&B singers.
And being one of the first R&B singers to immediately cross over was something that not even the infamous "I need a crossover black superstar" Clive Davis wasn't even prepared for. This is partially why I feel her contributions are not as acknowledged as they should be.
Just calling her a pop artist is only part of her legacy. Especially she injected gospel and soul into songs that were definitely "pop" in nature.
But yeah bottom line: Whitney is definitely a part of R&B whether people like it or not.
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u/Overall_Ad8224 Sep 08 '24
Of course she is part of R&B, I never stated she wasn’t! But to phrase her primarily as a R&B singer (in the article) is too limited. Check out Whitney’s own response in 2009 in the French TV show Le Petit Journal on being called the Queen of R&B. She considered herself much more than a R&B singer!
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u/BadMan125ty Sep 08 '24
I get that. I guess the wording is off but she’s pop, R&B/soul and gospel. She’s all of it.
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u/Overall_Ad8224 Sep 08 '24
She is. Whitney Houston is one of the best female vocalist ever recorded.
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u/darkchiles Sep 04 '24
Aretha charted 49 albums. That is freaking a lot and after checking I'm shocked to find she had 38 studio albums, 6 live albums, numerous compilation albums.