Musical Instruments
Cultural impact of Whitney Houston
American singer and actress Whitney Houston (1963–2012) is widely regarded as one of the most culturally significant figures of the 20th century. She is recognized for her music and Hollywood crossover that influenced the breaking down of gender and racial barriers. As one of the best-selling and most awarded performers in history, Houston's career has been influential to the entertainment industry and popular culture. Known as ''The Voice", she was named the greatest woman in music by ABC and the second-greatest singer of all time by Rolling Stone. In 2025, Forbes named Houston the top black female vocalist, the number one female singer of the 80s and third of the 90s. Publications including the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Fox News, and NBC News dubbed Houston the “greatest singer of her generation”. Houston has had an impact on breaking racial barriers for African Americans in the entertainment industry. She is also a gay icon and had an impact on politics. Her popularity and achievements has been compared to that of cultural icons Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley, the Beatles, and Judy Garland. Houston has the most consecutive US number-one singles, the best-selling album of all time by a woman, best-selling single of the 1980s by a woman, best-selling debut album by a solo artist, best-selling R&B album by a woman, best selling gospel album and best-selling single by a woman. Her first two albums, Whitney Houston (1985) and Whitney (1987), along with The Bodyguard soundtrack (1992), rank among the best-selling albums of all time and made her the first black artist to score three RIAA diamond-certified albums. Her second album Whitney (1987) was the first album by an artist to debut at number one on the Billboard 200 and UK Albums Chart. "I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)" and "I Will Always Love You" are among the best-selling singles of all time, with the former being named the best pop song ever by Billboard. Houston worked in nine feature films, three television films, and seven television episodes, and appeared in seventeen commercials. She made her screen acting debut in the romantic thriller film The Bodyguard (1992) which was one of the 10 highest-grossing films worldwide at the time, making $411 million worldwide. Houston continued starring roles in Waiting to Exhale (1995), The Preacher's Wife (1996) and Cinderella (1997).
Also on this shelf
Georges Delerue.
Bell cymbal.
See also
Uncatalogued shelfText from Wikipedia; plate via Wikimedia Commons. Text CC BY-SA 4.0; plate freely licensed (see Commons). Source record. Images and catalogue data are reproduced from open-access collections.