Tag Archives: Whitney Houston

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Song of the Day #6,321: ‘Saving All My Love For You’ – Whitney Houston

Before getting to this week’s featured Throwback Weekend selection, I have to note that I missed by one week my chance to highlight what is perhaps my all-time favorite song: A-Ha’s ‘Take On Me.’ That track enjoyed its one and only week atop the Billboard Hot 100 on the week ending October 19, 1985.

Of course, ‘Take On Me’ has already shown up on the blog in many different forms, so I would have ended up writing about the #2 song anyway. And that happens to be the song that replaced ‘Take On Me’ at #1 the following week — Whitney Houston’s ‘Saving All My Love For You.’

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Song of the Day #5,630: ‘How Will I Know’ – Whitney Houston

Three albums released in 1985 are among the 40 top-selling albums of all time. I covered two of them in recent weeks: Dire Straits’ Brothers in Arms and Phil Collins’ No Jacket Required.

The third is Whitney Houston’s self-titled debut, an album that crawled out of the gate in February of ’85 and slowly picked up steam, eventually becoming a record-breaking juggernaut. Despite coming out in early ’85, it ended up as the best-selling album of 1986. It also produced three #1 singles, a first for a debut album or an album by a solo woman.

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Song of the Day #4,240: ‘So Emotional’ – Whitney Houston

Like The Doobie Brothers, Whitney Houston earned entrance into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame the first time she was nominated. In her case, that nomination came ten years after her initial eligibility in 2010.

Had she made it in back then she would have been alive to see it happen, but Houston drowned in a bathtub two years later while under the influence of several drugs. She died the night before that year’s Grammy awards, turning that celebration into a solemn affair (shades of Kobe Bryant’s pre-Grammys passing this year).

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Song of the Day #1,324: ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ – Whitney Houston

This is not my belated Whitney Houston eulogy. I was unmoved by her passing, as I tend to be by the passing of celebrities.

I believe the last celebrity death that had a real impact on me was Kurt Vonnegut’s, and he was old enough and unhealthy enough that it didn’t come as a major shock. Houston’s death wasn’t much of a shock, either — as with the passing of Amy Winehouse, my first thought upon hearing the news was, “and she seemed so well put-together.”

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