Whitney Houston and Babyface struck the soundtrack once again with “Waiting To Exhale,” based on Terry McMillan’s novel that emphasized the deep bond between four African-American friends.
Houston wanted the soundtrack to feature nothing but “women with vocal distinction – women who you can call by their first name and not have to mention their last name.” These women included Toni, Aretha, Brandy, Mary H., Chaka, Patti, Faith, Left Eye, and naturally the star of the film herself, Whitney.
Quincy Jones was the original choice of the soundtrack producer, but Babyface was happy to “take Quincy’s leftovers.” He was involved in writing all 16 tracks, “looking at every character and trying to fill their life and put it to music,” which Houston responded to in the same interview, “every song on the soundtrack matches to every woman who sings it. It’s amazing how he did it, I still don’t know how he did it.
What they did was create a soundtrack that spent 5 weeks in # 1 and spawned 7 singles. Two of those singles topped the charts (Whitney’s newest # 1 hit “Exhale (Shoop Shoop)” and Toni’s “Let It Flow”, and the album itself garnered 11 Grammy nominations and 1 victory, and went multi-deck 7 times. Aside from the numbers, Houston said, “the soundtracks even make the movie even bigger many times over,” adding “everything is fine. And so it is.” Exhale “the album made with this film.”
