Whitney Houston's long-awaited comeback album will be released this September, her label has announced. Six years since her last record, it seems the troubled singer will at last find out whether her audience aaaaaa-a-always loves her.
With more than 140m albums sold worldwide, Houston is one of the bestselling artists of all time – just not recently. Her last album was 2003's One Wish: The Holiday Album, preceded by the not-so-Yuletide 2002 release Just Whitney. She has spent the past five years chased by drug and domestic abuse allegations, culminating in a divorce from Bobby Brown in 2007. Houston received custody of daughter Bobbi Kristina.
If the rumours are to be believed, Houston's comeback album will have the appropriately tenacious title Undefeated. And it will feature songwriting credits by artists like Will.I.Am, Sean Garrett, R Kelly and Swizz Beatz. But not even Houston's duet with Akon, which leaked to the internet last year, has been confirmed for this release. In other words – details remain scarce.
"[Whitney's] voice is there," Akon promised in 2007. "I don't think anyone could ever take that from her. As long as we apply that voice to hit records, she'll be right back where she left off."
The singer's last performance was at mogul Clive Davis's Grammys party in February – where she apparently blew the roof off. "You don't [make a comeback album] by going into a computer," Davis said in his introduction. "You wait for the material to justify a new album."
The album will be released by Arista on 1 September.