I Will Always Love You The Best of Whitney Houston

The double-disc 2011 U.K. collection The Essential Whitney Houston bears some strong similarities to the 2000 U.S. set The Greatest Hits, sharing 22 of its 35 songs. And it’s not just the big hits that overlap: there are a clutch of remixes that carry over, all bunched together on the second disc just like they are on The Greatest Hits. Consequently, The Essential Whitney Houston plays much like The Greatest Hits; even if it has a handful of songs not on the 2000 collection, it covers the same territory equally well and equally entertainingly.

Whitney Houston's first big-screen role in 1992's The Bodyguard would generate a phenomenon. Not that the film itself was a phenomenon – it was a healthy success, due not only to Houston, but to her co-star Kevin Costner's drawing power – but the soundtrack's success was astonishing. The Bodyguard followed Houston's cover of Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You" to the top of the charts, and once they got there, neither the single nor the album budged for weeks.

Few observers expected that Whitney Houston's first big-screen role in 1992's The Bodyguard would generate a phenomenon. Not that the film itself was a phenomenon – it was a healthy success, due not only to Houston, but to her co-star Kevin Costner's drawing power – but the soundtrack's success was astonishing. The Bodyguard followed Houston's cover of Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You" to the top of the charts, and once they got there, neither the single nor the album budged for weeks. "I Will Always Love You" spent a record-shattering 14 weeks in the top slot, while The Bodyguard spent 20 weeks at number one, eventually selling over 15 million copies and winning the Grammy award for Album of the Year.