Whitney (album)

Whitney is the second studio album by American singer Whitney Houston. It was released on June 1, 1987, by Arista Records. The follow-up to her debut album, production on the album mostly aimed at Houston reaching a dance audience that her label felt was missing with her debut, which mostly featured ballads and love songs. Mostly produced by Narada Michael Walden with minimal output from Michael Masser, Kashif and John "Jellybean" Benitez and featuring guest output from musicians such as Kenny G and Roy Ayers, the album became an immediate hit upon its release.

In the United States, the album became just the fifth album in Billboard 200 history to debut at number one on the chart and the first by a female artist to accomplish this. It spent eleven weeks atop the chart, marking the first time since Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life had maintained its position atop the chart after its debut. Along with her debut topping the charts for 14 weeks, Houston set a 1980s chart record for a woman by accumulating 25 cumulative weeks at number one on the Billboard 200. Internationally, the album topped the record charts in thirteen other countries including the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Canada, Germany, and several countries throughout Europe, while also finding success in Asia, South America and Africa, becoming a global success. In addition, it was the first album by a solo black female artist to top the albums chart in the United Kingdom. It has sold an estimated 25 million copies worldwide, becoming one of the best-selling albums of all time. In October 2020, Houston set another sales record when the album was certified diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America, for sales of over 10 million copies in the United States, making her the first black artist to score three diamond albums in the United States. Whitney cemented her as an international icon.

In the US, the album spawned a then-record setting five top ten singles on the Billboard Hot 100, all of whom became international hit singles. The album's first four singles — "I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)", "Didn't We Almost Have It All", "So Emotional" and "Where Do Broken Hearts Go" — all peaked at number one on the chart, breaking a record Houston set with her previous album, as the first female artist to score four number one singles off from one album. Along with three straight number one singles from Houston's debut, the latter four helped Houston to earn an all-time chart record of seven consecutive number one singles on the Billboard Hot 100, a record the singer still maintains. The album's fifth single, "Love Will Save the Day", reached the top ten on the same chart, while a sixth single, a cover of "I Know Him So Well", a duet sung with mother Cissy Houston, became a European market-only release in late 1988.

The album won Houston a second Grammy Award nomination for Album of the Year at the 30th Annual Grammy Awards, while Houston won Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female for "I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)", while Walden won the Grammy for Producer of the Year, Non-Classical, mostly for the work featured on the album; while Houston won two awards for the album at the NARM Awards for the album.