Wiki
-
Release Date
16 November 1992
-
Length
12 tracks
The Bodyguard is the soundtrack from the movie of the same name, released on November 17, 1992, on Arista Records and features songs by Whitney Houston, as well as songs from various other artists. The album was co-executive produced by Whitney Houston and Clive Davis. With this album, Houston became the first act (solo or group, male or female) to sell more than a million copies of an album within a single week period. The soundtrack later went on to win a Grammy Award for Album of the Year and the Recording Industry Association of America certified it 18x Platinum (diamond) on November 17, 2017. To date, it has sold over 44 million copies worldwide, and is the best-selling soundtrack of all time.
Houston served as executive producer as she did on her previous release "I'm Your Baby Tonight". As a result, she had full control as to what was included on this album. Houston was to record "What Becomes of the Broken Hearted" as the film's theme song, however, when they found out another film was going to use it, they searched for another song. Kevin Costner, the fim's co-star, thought of recording "I Will Always Love You", originally released by Dolly Parton. While recording the album, Houston insisted on using her touring band as opposed to a studio band. Houston also included a gospel song for the album. She co-produced and arranged the music for Jesus Loves Me with Bebe Winans.
The album is most notable for Houston's version of "I Will Always Love You". The song received huge airplay, appealing to the pop, R&B, Adult Contemporary, and Soul radio markets. The single spent 14 weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. The album stood atop at the number-one spot on the Billboard 200 for 20 weeks. "I Will Always Love You" was so successful worldwide, peaking at #1 for 10 weeks in U.K., for 8 weeks in Switzerland, for 5 weeks in Austria, for 8 weeks in France, for 6 weeks in Netherlands, for 3 weeks in Sweden, for 9 weeks in Norway, for 10 weeks in Australia (Best selling album of 1993), for 11 weeks in New Zealand.
With the next two Top 5 singles "I'm Every Woman" (a Chaka Khan cover) and "I Have Nothing", following on the heels of "I Will Always Love You", Houston became the first female act to have three songs in the Top 20 simultaneously. Two songs, "Run To You" and "I Have Nothing", were each nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song, but lost out to "A Whole New World" from the animated film Aladdin. The same two songs were nominated for Grammy Awards in the category Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or for Television. Other songs garnering significant radio airplay included "Jesus Loves Me" on gospel stations, and "Queen of the Night" on pop and dance stations.
The album was certified Platinum on January 21, 1993 by IFPI Sweden but it should be 3× Platinum over because Billboard magazine the issue date on October 16, 1993, said The Bodyguard Soundtrack sold 343,000 copies in Sweden. Until September, 1996, Platinum album was certified for sales of 100,000 in Sweden. In U.K., compilation albums were excluded from the main album chart from January 1989. The Bodyguard Soundtrack peaked at #1 on the compilations chart, not the main albums chart.
Album descriptions on Last.fm are editable by everyone. Feel free to contribute!
All user-contributed text on this page is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply.
