The remake of Steve Winwood’s “Higher Love” is Whitney Houston’s first posthumous debut on the Billboard Hot 100 and her first in 10 years.
Seven years after the musical icon passed, the diva’s previously unreleased rework of her 1990 cover of Winwood’s 1986 hit, debuts at No. 63 on Billboard’s weekly ranking of the most commercially successful songs.
The Whitney Houston estate offered Kygo the archival recording of her original cover, which was previously released as a Japan-only bonus track on the physical version of her 1990 album I’m Your Baby Tonight.
Pat Houston, Whitney’s sister-in-law and sole executor of her estate, told Entertainment Weekly that the revived cover of “Higher Love” is the first of multiple musical projects.
“Before she passed, there was so much negativity around the name; it wasn’t about the music anymore,” Houston said. “People had forgotten how great she was. They let all the personal things about her life outweigh why they fell in love with her in the first place.”
Listen to the track below.
