Whitney Houston's latest album, 'I Look To You' debuted at #1 on the Billboard album charts and became 2009's biggest chart-debut album with over 400,000 albums sold in the opening week alone.
Just over a month later, Michael Jackson's posthumous soundtrack album release, 'This Is It' debut at #1 this week and beat Whitney's as the year's biggest selling chart debut album, by (just) a couple of thousand copies.
Although, it's worth mentioning that :
1) Whitney's album 'I Look To You' is still the biggest album chart debut this year for a female artiste and is already guaranteed to be one of this year's biggest selling albums by both a female singer and overall.
This album is critically aclaimed and is already slated for a Grammy nod and will likely continue to sell strongly for months and even years to come.
2) Michael's soundtrack album is essentially a greatest hits mixed into a 'live' setting as heard in the movie. It is obbviously banking on the late singer's hype over his sudden death and his upcoming biopic movie. It's not an album with material we haven't already heard, like, ten thousand times in the past in various formats. So , indeed, it rides only on the hype that will soon wear thin.
Interestingly,
1) Whitney will be replacing Mike for his string of concert-venue dates at O2 Arena, London which he was preparing for before his untimely demise.
2) Whitney's 'The Bodyguard' album is also the 2nd biggest selling album of all time , at 43 million copies and still going strong , after Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' album which sold 45 million copies but is as Halloween-dead as the singer himself.
'This is It' is unlikely to sell anywhere close to 'The Bodyguard' anyway, so it's discussion closed.
So, the battle rages on between The (late) King of Pop and The (comeback) Queen of the Night.
Q
