Billed as Hollywood's biggest night, the Academy Awards telecast was also TV's biggest show last week, helping crown ABC as overall prime-time winner.
Showing posts with label Houston. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Houston. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Whitney Houston songs race up music charts
LOS ANGELES/LONDON (Reuters) - Late singer Whitney Houston's re-entered music charts on Wednesday with a greatest hits album that raced into the top 10 of the U.S. Billboard 200, selling 101,000 copies in just 24 hours after the singer's sudden death this past weekend.
"Whitney: The Greatest Hits," which includes songs such as "Saving All My Love for You" and "My Love is Your Love," hit No. 6 on the album chart, selling 91,000 digital copies and 10,000 physical copies, based on Nielsen SoundScan sales weekly data that is finalized on Sunday evening.
Houston, 48, died on Saturday in a Beverly Hills hotel on the eve of the Grammy Awards. Her body was discovered underwater in her room's bathtub, and while speculation has centered on a possible overdose given her past problems with drinking and drugs, authorities have yet to determine a cause of death.
"There's certainly going to be a resurgence in Whitney music. We'll hear it on the radio a lot and that will lead to people listening to it on (online music streaming application) Spotify and downloading it on iTunes," said Bill Werde, editorial director of music publication Billboard, to Reuters.
Dramatic sales also followed the deaths of Michael Jackson in Los Angeles and Amy Winehouse in London. According to music magazine Billboard, more than 35 million Jackson albums were sold worldwide after he died in June 2009.
"It's sad when people discover an artist this way, but it is what happens when an artist dies," said Werde.
As fans of Houston rushed to rediscover the singer's music, single digital track sales of the artist's music rose to more than 887,000 song downloads in 24 hours.
The biggest selling digital song was Houston's signature ballad "I Will Always Love You" with more than 195,000 copies downloaded, fueled by Jennifer Hudson's emotional rendition of the song in tribute to Houston at Sunday's Grammy awards.
The song also was played more than 2100 times on U.S. terrestrial radio stations between Saturday and Sunday.
In the U.K., five of Houston's songs made it into the Top 40 by Wednesday, led by "I Will Always Love You" at No. 10. Since midnight on Saturday, 82,000 Houston singles and more than 37,000 albums had been sold in Britain by mid-week.
Britain's Official Charts Company reported a total of 27 Houston tracks were in the Top 200 as fans snapped up her music after her death on Saturday.
Earlier this week Houston's record label Sony Music Entertainment apologized after a price hike "mistake" on two of the singer's albums on iTunes just hours after her death. The price increase occurred on the UK iTunes, where Houston's "The Ultimate Collection" album jumped from 4.99 GBP to 7.99 GBP.
"Whitney Houston product was mistakenly mispriced on the UK iTunes store on Sunday," said a statement issued by Sony to the New York Times. "When discovered, the mistake was immediately corrected. We apologize for any offense caused."
The sales surge in Houston's music is likely to continue through the week, ahead of the singer's funeral on Saturday.
Her greatest hits compilation may knock Adele's "21" from the top spot on the Billboard 200 album chart next week, after the British singer, who swept the Grammys on Sunday with six awards, notched her 20th week at No. 1 on Wednesday.
(Reporting by Mike Collett-White and Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Bob Tourtellotte)
Whitney Houston laid to rest in New Jersey
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Whitney Houston was laid to rest on Sunday in a private burial before family and close friends near her birthplace in Newark, New Jersey, more than a week after her sudden death shocked the world.
The pop star, whose powerful voice fueled her rise to fame in the mid-1980s with self-titled albums that made her a global pop star, died in a Beverly Hills hotel room last week. She was found underwater in a bathtub, but an exact cause of death has yet to be determined.
Dozens of fans lined the edge of street barriers as the procession carrying Houston's body drove by under tight security from a funeral home in Newark, New Jersey to the Forest Lawn cemetery in nearby Westfield where Houston's body was buried next to her father.
"It was emotional," Teresa Giannetta, 35, who lives in Westfield and showed up with her daughter, Julia, 8, said after the hearse went by. Like many fans, Giannetta said she grew up listening to Houston's music and likened the singer to "the voice of my childhood."
"It's bittersweet to have her buried so close to home for us," she said.
Houston was laid to rest in her burial site after stars, family and friends mourned her in a spirited Baptist funeral service at her hometown church on Saturday. The New Hope Baptist Church in Newark was where Houston honed her wide vocal range as a young choral singer with her mother Cissy Houston, a backup singer for Aretha Franklin.
She recorded stirring love songs and vibrant dance tunes during a 30-year career that peaked with her 1992 signature hit "I Will Always Love You" and paved the way for a generation of singers such as Mariah Carey.
But Houston suffered a turbulent personal life and volatile marriage to singer Bobby Brown, and she admitted to heavy use of cocaine, marijuana, alcohol and prescription pills. Officials have said prescription drugs were found in the hotel room where she died, but they have not yet linked her death to drug use.
"People judge her for the last few years. You cannot do that. She gave 30 years of her wonderful, beautiful voice and shared with us. And you have to love that. You have to respect that," said Donna Wesolowki, 48, of New Jersey, who had watched Sunday's procession.
Houston's family decided against a public memorial service, as was done for pop star Michael Jackson after his 2009 death, but agreed to allow Saturday's four-hour tribute in the church to be broadcast live by television networks.
(Additional reporting By Christine Kearney; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)
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