The Bodyguard - Original Soundtrack Album

Background

In late 1989, while planning work on her third studio album, I'm Your Baby Tonight, Houston received a call from actor Kevin Costner to accept a leading role in a film titled The Bodyguard. Back in December 1986, Billboard magazine mentioned that Houston would take part in the film, only with Clint Eastwood as the co-lead. Costner convinced Silverado director and friend Lawrence Kasdan to let him be a co-producer for the project. Kasdan had originally written the script for the film back in 1975 and after his script was sold off to Warner Bros. Pictures, the film had originally been pegged as a project for Steve McQueen and Diana Ross in 1977, but stalled. An attempt to make the film a vehicle for Ross and Ryan O'Neal by 1979 was also stalled after Ross rejected the film.

Following Houston's career rise in the mid-1980s, she was sought after for film work by Robert Townsend, Spike Lee and Robert De Niro. Costner reportedly was convinced of Houston being Rachel Marron after viewing the music video for her 1988 hit single, "Where Do Broken Hearts Go". Houston, who had only taken brief acting cameos on television shows such as Silver Spoons, was reluctant but agreed to read the script. A nervous Houston still held off on the film until Costner convinced the singer in another phone call around late 1990 that he will "not let [her] fall".

Despite some concerns from film executives as well as its director Mick Jackson of Houston's potential, the singer passed a screen test in January 1991. That April, Houston and Costner announced that they would co-star in The Bodyguard. Costner delayed production on the film until Houston finished her world tour that year to late November 1991.

Recording

Prior to shooting the film, Arista Records CEO Clive Davis was not sure about the film that, at the time, had little music attached to it and didn't understand why Houston's character, Rachel Marron, "needed a bodyguard". Davis admitted later he was "nervous" of Houston's acting aspirations. After reading the initial script, Davis, who was on the board of directors of CBS when CBS first went into film back in the 1960s and who was at the time, on the board of directors of Columbia Pictures, wrote a letter to Costner and Jackson, arguing to them that the film "is nowhere near fulfilling the potential of what Whitney could contribute to the role".

Davis further wrote in the letter: "The songs that she can sing, the respect and appeal from that, so directly ties into a need for a bodyguard, and provides the foundation of chemistry, potentially, between the two [characters]."

Costner and Jackson agreed with Davis and Houston, in a deal with Warner Bros Pictures, signed a deal for rights to the soundtrack's back royalties and agreed to record at least six tracks, with five of them to be featured on the film. Maureen Crowe became the film's music supervisor and worked with Houston and Costner on finding songs for the film.

Through the deal, Houston received executive producer credit on the album, attaining full creative control. Houston was executive producer of her last studio album, I'm Your Baby Tonight, in which the singer experimented with new jack swing, funk and soul music, as a response to black music critics who decried her work on her sophomore album, Whitney, of "selling out" to a white audience.

Houston began work on the soundtrack in mid-November 1991. For the first time in her career, Houston picked the producers she wanted to work with. According to singer and producer BeBe Winans, who worked on the project with Houston, the singer was "truly in control. She grew into that confidence. She was playing catch-up for the first and second album, and then she caught up to how to become immune to what people would do or say... For the Bodyguard soundtrack, she was who she was." He added that by the time of the soundtrack recording, Houston had become "more understanding of a song, more so than just singing the song, and was part of those decisions of what songs she was going to sing. Now if she trusted you, as she did other musicians and songwriters, she would allow you to do what you do, and again take that song and make it her own." For a while, Houston kept the music to herself, later stating "... I kept the music to myself for a long time. I didn't want anybody to hear it. I was very careful." Despite not being as heads on with the project as he had with Houston's previous albums, Davis's name was added as co-executive producer as he was in charge of deciding its single releases. Houston and Crowe, with additional help from Costner, were in charge of choosing songs for the soundtrack.

Music and content

The soundtrack featured six Houston tracks, five tracks by various artists, and an instrumental, with Houston's material consisting of pop, urban pop and R&B with rock, house and gospel elements. With the Houston tracks, the themes on the album include heartbreak, unrequited love, feminism, partying and religion.

"I Will Always Love You" is Rachel Marron's parting song to Frank Farmer in the film. Houston begins the song a cappella, which lasts 45 seconds before soft strings and keyboard riffs by producer David Foster come in as Houston sings the chorus. In the middle of the song, during an instrumental break, Houston's saxophonist at the time, Kirk Whalum, adds a solo before Houston sings the third verse. The song then shifts into a dramatic key change thanks to Ricky Lawson's one note "solo" where he hits the toms, in which afterwards, Houston belts out a gospel-emulated wail in the last chorus before the song slows near the finale in which Houston ends it singing an operatic soprano on the word "you".

"I Have Nothing", penned by Foster and then-wife, songwriter Linda Thompson and inspired by Thompson's former relationship with American singer Elvis Presley, is a power ballad about deep love and the confusion that happens to lovers due to the different perceptions of women and men when it comes to relationship commitment. The song repeated the Houston-Foster formula of the previous track, with Houston singing in a soft soprano vocal in the first verse before belting it out in the chorus and second accompanying verse. The song also includes a dramatic key change along with horns and strings, arranged by Foster. Houston briefly multi-stacked her voice near the end of the track on the words, "don't you dare".

Originally recorded by funk singer Chaka Khan in 1978, "I'm Every Woman", penned by Ashford & Simpson, was Houston's first venture into house music, co-produced by longtime collaborator Narada Michael Walden and the production team of Clivillés and Cole and focused on a feminist theme, dedicated to women. It was one of the singer's personal picks to record for the album due to her being a longtime fan of Khan. During her career as a teenage session vocalist, Houston sang background vocals on Khan's sophomore solo album, Naughty (1980). Houston and Walden decided to add a soulful ballad intro to differentiate from the Khan original, with a faster tempo. Near the end, Houston references Khan's name similar to rap artist Melle Mel on Khan's 1984 hit, "I Feel for You". The song was recorded months after filming on The Bodyguard wrapped that March.

Promotion

Tour

Houston embarked on a world tour to continue promoting the album, which would remain on the charts throughout its duration. During the tour, Houston performed full length versions of all six of the Bodyguard tracks on the tour, with "I Have Nothing" and "I Will Always Love You" being prominently featured on the tour as showstoppers, with the latter song being performed near the end of the concert before returning onstage to sing "I'm Every Woman" as an encore, while "Jesus Loves Me" was performed as part of the gospel music portion of the show. "Queen of the Night" would start with the original hard rock version before Houston returned onstage and then it transformed into the house version, produced by C.J. Mackintosh. "Run to You" was sporadically performed during the tour on select dates.

Houston launched the tour at the James L. Knight Center in Miami, Florida on July 5, 1993, and ended it at the Green Point Stadium in Cape Town, South Africa on November 19, 1994, where she performed a total of 120 shows in front of more than half a million fans in five global continents and performed at the continents of South America and Africa for the first time in her career. During the 1993 leg, most of the dates were at theaters because Houston wanted an intimate setting. During the second North American leg of the tour, Houston performed at the opening ceremony of the 1994 FIFA World Cup at the Rose Bowl Stadium. Houston performed for the first time at stadiums in South America and South Africa to audiences as large as 75,000. The South Africa concerts in particular were special due to Houston being the first international artist to headline at the country following the abolishing of apartheid in the region and the presidential election win of Nelson Mandela. The Johannesburg show at Ellis Park Stadium aired on HBO to high ratings on November 12, while the November 8th show at Durban's Kings Park Stadium was posthumously shown at selected film theaters in October 2024 and was followed by a live recording, released on the 30th anniversary of the concert.

The tour proved to be a huge success as most of the dates were sold out. The success of the tour helped Houston make Forbes magazine's Richest Entertainers list. Houston earned over $33 million during 1993 and 1994, the third highest for a female entertainer. The tour led to several positive reviews of Houston's performance. During her first Radio City Music Hall performance in New York City, Stephen Holden of the New York Times wrote that "her stylistic trademarks — shivery melismas that ripple up in the middle of a song, twirling embellishments at the ends of phrases that suggest an almost breathless exhilaration — infuse her interpretations with flashes of musical and emotional lightning." At one of her Atlantic City dates, Kevin L. Carter of the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote that Houston handled her songs "with subdued emotionalism and the intelligence that only a gifted musician can bring to a song."

Singles

"I Will Always Love You" was released as the lead single from the soundtrack, on November 2, 1992. The song became an immediate hit upon its release, receiving extensive airplay on multi-format stations as well as genre stations all over the country, appealing to pop, adult contemporary and R&B radio markets. On the November 14th issue of Billboard, "I Will Always Love You" entered the Billboard Hot 100 at number 40, making it Houston's third highest debut at the time. Two weeks later, on its November 28 issue, the song shot to number one, giving Houston her career tenth number one single, tying her with Madonna for most number ones by a female artist at the time. The song stayed at number one for a record fourteen weeks, all of them spent consecutively, which remains a record to this day.

The song took off internationally as well, landing number one for fourteen weeks in New Zealand, ten weeks in the United Kingdom and Australia, nine weeks in Norway, 8 weeks in France and Switzerland, six weeks in the Netherlands and 3 weeks in Sweden, as well as thirteen weeks atop the European Singles chart. Eventually, the song would reach the top ten in more than 40 countries and top the charts in 34 of those countries. At 24 million copies sold globally, it is the best-selling single of all time by a female artist. The music video for the song, notable for Houston sitting on a stool singing the song while scenes of the film were interpolated, became an immediate hit on all music video stations including MTV, earning heavy rotation. The success of the video helped Houston win the MTV Movie Award for Best Song. The song also became her career sixth number one single on the Hot R&B Singles chart, where it stayed for a then-record 11 consecutive weeks, and also became her career ninth number one hit on the adult contemporary chart, where it stayed for 5 consecutive weeks.

The album's second single, "I'm Every Woman", was released on January 2, 1993. The song also became an immediate success, eventually peaking at number four on the Billboard Hot 100, all while "I Will Always Love You" remained at number one on the chart. The song followed "I Will Always Love You" to international chart success, reaching the top ten in fifteen other countries including the United Kingdom, Canada, Poland, New Zealand, Italy, Belgium, Denmark and the European Singles chart, placing in more top ten placements throughout its tenure than the Chaka Khan original did fifteen years earlier. The song's music video, directed by Randee St. Nicholas, was also a hit, with Houston featuring notable women such as the song's original co-writer Valerie Simpson, R&B group TLC, mother Cissy Houston and the song's original vocalist Khan. It later won Houston the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Music Video. The song reached number one on the Hot Dance Club Play chart, earning Houston her fourth career number one hit on the chart and her first to top the chart since "Love Will Save the Day" in 1988.

Reception

Critical reception

Upon its release, The Bodyguard received mixed-to-positive reviews, with most of the positive reviews, aimed at the production of Houston's songs and Houston's vocals. AllMusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine views that the first half is characterized by urban pop songs similar to I'm Your Baby Tonight (1990), while the second half has miscellaneous tracks more "typical of a big-budget soundtrack".

In her Entertainment Weekly review, Amy Linden wrote, "Houston's portion [of the soundtrack] is evenly divided between (a) the pleasantly efficient, yet soulless stuff from her three albums and (b) two stunning cover versions, whose selection is both artistically satisfying and uncharacteristically hip for the MOR songbird."

In his December 23, 1992 review of the album for The Washington Post, Geoffrey Himes wrote that the soundtrack was "the [then] 29-year-old star's best album yet", stating that "it provides her with the best material and least obtrusive arrangements."

In its retrospective review, MusicHound declares the album "contains Houston's best vocal performance ever" with "I Will Always Love You".

In its Rolling Stone review, the soundtrack "is nothing more than pleasant, tasteful and urbane, but for a phenomenon, it's worthy of its numbers."

Commercial performance

In the US, The Bodyguard debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 chart dated December 5, 1992, behind Ice Cube's The Predator, selling 144,500 copies in the first week. In the following week dated December 12, the album topped the Billboard 200, for increased sales of 292,000 units. While the album stayed at the summit on the charts, it broke the sales record for most single-week sales twice. During its fifth week, it sold 831,000 copies, breaking the single-week sales record set by heavy metal band Guns N' Roses' 1991 set, Use Your Illusion II. The following week, it broke its own record for most albums sold in a single week since Nielsen SoundScan introduced a computerized sales monitoring system in May 1991 when it sold approximately 1,061,000 copies, making Houston the first artist in the SoundScan era to have an album sell over a million copies in a single week. The album would spend a total of twenty cumulative weeks atop the Billboard 200, marking the first time a female artist had accumulated that many weeks at number one, including thirteen consecutive weeks at the summit, which became the second most consecutive weeks by a female artist, succeeded only by Carole King's Tapestry. In addition, Houston set another chart record when she spent the most cumulative weeks simultaneously on both the Billboard 200 and Billboard Hot 100 with The Bodyguard and "I Will Always Love You" spending twelve consecutive weeks at number one on the respective charts. One of the fastest-selling albums in music history, the album was eventually certified diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on November 3, 1993, less than a year after its release, becoming the first album by a female artist to go diamond for sales of ten million copies by the RIAA, eventually selling 19 million copies alone in the country.

In addition, after debuting at number two, the album also topped the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart in its second week and would go on to stay atop that chart for eight consecutive weeks, matching her run on the chart with her previous effort, I'm Your Baby Tonight (1990). On the Billboard 200, the album would spend 42 of its weeks inside the top ten, her second most weeks inside the top ten after Whitney Houston (1985), which spent 48 weeks inside the top ten during its run. It would eventually spend 155 cumulative weeks on the Billboard 200 and 122 weeks on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, marking the second time in the chart's history that a female artist had spent 100 or more weeks on the chart, followed by Houston's 1985 debut, which spent 116 weeks. It held a 19-year chart record as the female album with the most weeks at number one until singer Adele broke it with her album, 21, which went on to spend 24 weeks at number one. As of 2025, Houston and Adele remain the only female artists to have an album register at number one on the chart for twenty or more weeks. Due to its success on Billboard, the soundtrack was ranked the top album on the Billboard Year-End pop and R&B album lists, marking the second time Houston accomplished this since her debut, Whitney Houston, had done it in 1986. It was also the first album in Nielsen SoundScan history to rank among the top three albums in two consecutive years, ranking at number three in 1992 and number one for 1993, and the best-selling soundtrack by the National Association of Recording Merchandisers (NARM) in 1993–1994. After the soundtrack was credited as a Whitney Houston album in Billboard's archives, Houston became the only artist of the Billboard 200 era with three albums to remain atop the chart for over eleven weeks ㅡWhitney Houston (14 weeks), Whitney (11 weeks) and The Bodyguard (20 weeks). Houston also broke the record for the most cumulative weeks at number one by a female artist with 46 cumulative weeks until Taylor Swift surpassed it in 2020 with her album Folklore. It also set an RIAA sales record for receiving the largest initial certification of any album at six-times platinum on January 18, 1993. The record was later broken by *NSYNC's No Strings Attached, certified 7× Platinum initially in April 2000. When the RIAA launched the Diamond Awards on March 16, 1999, The Bodyguard joined it along with 62 other albums. It is the first album to reach both the 10 million and 11 million sales mark in the US since 1991, when Nielsen SoundScan started tracking music sales. As of late 2014, it had sold 12,140,000 copies; it is the sixth best-selling album of the SoundScan era in the United States.

Legacy and accolades

Impact

The film and its accompanying soundtrack changed the direction of Houston's career. Though already a well-established superstar by the time of its release, the film and its soundtrack cemented her as a global megastar. Gail Mitchell, Billboard senior correspondent, stated, "plain and simple, The Bodyguard's unparalleled success cemented Whitney Houston's status in the firmament of iconic female singers," adding that the film sparked Houston's "second career as an actress — a transition that only a few singers have seamlessly accomplished." British biographer Richard Seal in his book on Houston, One Moment in Time: The Life of Whitney Houston, wrote that she "entered and seemingly effortlessly succeeded in that notorious graveyard for rock star legends, the film business" following the success of the film. The Bodyguard spent 42 weeks inside the top ten of the Billboard 200, the fifth most weeks a soundtrack album has spent inside the top ten in chart history.

In later years, the soundtrack has been regarded as one of the best albums of all time. The Ringer ranked it the seventh best movie soundtrack of the past 50 years in 2021. On Pitchfork's 2022 list of its 150 Greatest Albums of the 1990s, the Houston soundtrack was listed at number 147, crediting Houston for influencing future stars such as Christina Aguilera and Ariana Grande. In 2023, the A.V. Club listed it as the 12th best movie soundtrack of all time. That same year, Cosmopolitan ranked it as the 38th best movie soundtrack of all time, while The Independent ranked it 35th place in its best top 40 film soundtracks. In 2024, it was listed among the 101 Greatest Soundtracks of All Time on Rolling Stone. A year later, in 2025, Entertainment Weekly listed it as one of the best film soundtracks of the 1990s. That same year, Classic Pop included the soundtrack as one of the 40 best pop soundtracks of all time.

The lead single "I Will Always Love You" is often recognized in all-time rankings. In 2001, the National Endowment for the Arts in collaboration with the Recording Industry Association of America listed the song at number 108 in its list of 365 songs of the 20th century. In 2004, the American Film Institute ranked it 65th place in its top 100 songs in American cinema of the 20th century. Rod Couch listed it as the top of his book ranking The Top 500 Songs of the Rock Era: 1955-2015. The song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2018, then selected by the Library of Congress in 2019 for preservation in the National Recording Registry. In 2021, Rolling Stone ranked the song 94th on its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list. Billboard listed it as the 60th best pop song of all time in its 2023 ranking. Houston's other singles from the soundtrack, including "I'm Every Woman" and "I Have Nothing" have also been included in best-of lists, with "I Have Nothing", in particular, becoming the most covered tune by any artist on the talent show, American Idol, with fourteen covers. Singers Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson later performed the song during record label auditions, successfully earning record deals, while Christina Aguilera earned her record deal after performing "Run to You" for executives for RCA Records. At the 2021 funeral for American rapper DMX, Houston's "Jesus Loves Me" from the soundtrack was among the songs played.

Awards and accolades

Both The Bodyguard soundtrack and its singles received many accolades following its release. At the 65th Academy Awards in 1993, both "I Have Nothing" and "Run to You" received nominations for Best Original Song for its songwriters. At the 36th Annual Grammy Awards, the soundtrack received six nominations including four alone for Houston, who won three, including Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and Record of the Year for "I Will Always Love You", while winning Album of the Year for The Bodyguard, which made Houston just the second black female artist in Grammy history to win the coveted award. In addition, as a producer, Houston became the first black female producer to win in the category. To this day, The Bodyguard remains the only soundtrack album in history to have the soundtrack and one of its songs win the two top Grammy Awards.

At the 1994 American Music Awards, Houston won a staggering seven awards for the soundtrack including Favorite Pop/Rock Album, an additional eighth American Music Award for Award of Merit earned Houston a record for the most AMAs won by a woman, tying overall with Michael Jackson. Houston received 11 Billboard Music Awards in 1993, including Top Billboard 200 Album for The Bodyguard. Internationally, Houston won five World Music Awards, six Japan Gold Disc Awards, a Juno Award for International Album of the Year and a Brit Award for Soundtrack/Cast Recording.

I Wish You Love: More from The Bodyguard

I Wish You Love: More from the Bodyguard is the 25th anniversary reissue of the album, released by Legacy Recordings on November 17, 2017. The album was released to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the movie, The Bodyguard, which marked Houston's film debut. It includes the film versions of her six Bodyguard contributions – "I Will Always Love You", "I Have Nothing", "I'm Every Woman", "Run to You", "Queen of the Night" and "Jesus Loves Me" – as well as remixes and live performances of the songs from subsequent tours. The album's release coincided with a tribute to Houston and the music of The Bodyguard at the American Music Awards on November 19 on ABC as performed by Christina Aguilera. Ahead of the performance, Aguilera wrote on Instagram, "I am excited, honored and humbled to perform a tribute to one of my idols."

Track listing

All songs performed by Whitney Houston, except where noted.

Notes

On the US edition, Kenny G's "Waiting for You" was not included, with Alan Silvestri's "Theme from The Bodyguard" appearing in its place (before Joe Cocker feat. Sass Jordan's "Trust in Me")