Does Anybody Care About Whitney Houston?
by Once one of the world’s most successful of female entertainers, she made some big mistakes. And now she’s back with her brand new album, but was it all worth it?
The fact that “I Look To You”, her first studio album in slightly less than 7 years is being promoted as her massive “comeback” may have overlooked one fact. This isn’t her first “comeback” album.
“Just Whitney”, released at the end of 2002, was also marketed back then as a “comeback” for her, after a 4 year break from the album that preceded it. However, it produced no hit singles and barely sold platinum in America, making it her lowest selling record to date.
Now however, will she be capable of reaching the heights she once touched in the 80s and 90s?
“I Look To You” may have debuted at the top spot on the Billboard 200, but hardly anyone seems to notice the fact that the sales of 305,000 copies (the highest first week album sales of a female artist in 2009) does not justify the amount of publicity and promotion that went into this campaign.
Houston did everything she could, to the extent of appearing in an Oprah two-day special (which greatly boosted her third week sales) and perfoming live in every talk show she managed to get her hands on. The media attention she received was simply enormous.
For her though, it failed to translate into massive success. Given that she is a major female icon of the previous century, the reception towards her material would be best described as “lukewarm”. Why has nobody mentioned that Beyonce, with perhaps half the publicity Houston has racked up for her current release, managed more than 480,000 copies in her first week?
Where are Houston’s millions of fans? For a woman who sold an average of 8 million copies per album before the noughties, she is underperforming rather dramatically. And yet, thanks to Oprah, the media tolls on about how successful Houston’s comeback has been.
Can Whitney Houston return to great significance once again? Let’s see how it all goes from here, with 584,000 copies of “I Look To You” sold in it’s first three weeks of promotional blitz. The training wheels are off, you’re on your own now girl.
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