The Bodyguard became the highest-earning soundtrack of all time, surpassing Saturday Night Fever, and influencing generations of big-voiced divas like Christina Aguilera and Ariana Grande. Not to be overlooked are the album’s original torch songs, “I Have Nothing” and “Run to You,” performed by Houston with maximalist feeling and immaculate precision. First, there’s the covers, including her ebullient remake of Chaka Khan’s “I’m Every Woman,” and her bold reconstruction of Dolly Parton’s sentimental country-weeper “I Will Always Love You,” which spent a record 14 weeks atop the Hot 100 en route to becoming one of the most beloved and hated songs ever, depending on your taste for pop schmaltz.

The interracial romance-thriller The Bodyguard, starring Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner, was the 13th biggest movie of 1992-a feat that had more than a little to do with the film’s soundtrack, which featured Houston delivering six superbly written and produced tracks at the pristine peak of her vocal superpowers. Salt-N-Pepa just happened to get there early. Blige’s “I'll Be There for You/You're All I Need to Get By” weren’t far away.

More than that, though, hip-hop was beginning to thaw to the idea of incorporating R&B and pop: Puff had convened Bad Boy Records in 1993, and genre-shifting cuts like Method Man and Mary J. But in the wake of the so-called “ Year of the Woman,” their career-long pop sensibilities congealed in the hits “Shoop” and the En Vogue-featuring “Whatta Man,” positive anthems that remain stalwart in the wedding and auntie playlists. They didn’t change up their raison d’etre: Salt, Pepa, and Spinderella were still committed to women determining their own futures and calling out creepers and weirdos. Salt-N-Pepa were a rebuke to the music industry’s storied disdain for women rappers, having gone platinum on their first two records by their fourth album Very Necessary, which quickly went multi-platinum, the trio could not be denied.

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