Whitney Houston

Whitney Houston's Diamond-Platinum Sophomore Album Celebrates Its 35th Anniversary in Style: Mobile Fidelity's Numbered-Edition Hybrid SACD Gives Whitney the Red-Carpet Treatment. Sourced from the Original Master Tapes for Spectacular Sound: 1987 Blockbuster Plays with Newly Revealed Openness, Clarity, Air, Immediacy, Depth, and Detail.

It's only been seven years between Just Whitney and 2009's I Look to You, not even Houston's longest time between albums, but it feels much, much longer, her glory days obscured in hazy memories of lost luster chiefly deriving from a bad marriage with Bobby Brown, chronicled in an embarrassing reality show for Bravo in 2004. I Look to You attempts to wash this all away with something of a return to roots – a celebration of Houston's deep disco beginnings, tempered with a few skyscraping ballads designed to showcase her soaring voice. Houston's rocky decade isn't ignored, but it isn't explored, either: songs allude to Whitney's strength, her willpower as a survivor struggling through some unnamed struggle – enough for listeners to fill in the blanks, either with their own experience or their imaginings of Houston's life.

Whitney Houston became an international star with this album. It sold more than ten million copies around the world, yielded a string of number one hit singles across the board like "I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)," "Didn't We Almost Have It All," and "Love Will Save the Day," and established Houston as the era's top female star. She later went on to more than solidify that status, with other hit albums and a budding film career. While this is a far cry from soul, it's the ultimate in polished, super-produced urban contemporary material.