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Houston’s body back in hometown, Sony criticised for album price hike

By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 14 February 2012

Whitney Houston’s body is now at a funeral home in her hometown of Newark in New Jersey, after being released to the family yesterday. As previously reported, an autopsy of the late singer, who died on Saturday, was inconclusive, pending the results of toxicology tests.

Police again confirmed yesterday that Houston’s death was not being treated as a homicide, but did not comment on what may have caused the singer’s premature demise. Giving a little detail about the discovery of Houston’s body – she was found underwater in her bath tub by her staff, who called hotel security, who in turn called paramedics, none of whom could revive the star – they added that so far it wasn’t clear what circumstances actually led to the singer’s death.

Of course there has been much speculation that drugs may have been involved in someway, with most speculators preferring some kind of theory involving the singer falling into a deep drug-induced sleep in her bath, and then slipping and drowning, though that theory is based wholly on supposition and not evidence. Police wouldn’t comment on that theory, and the coroner, while revealing prescription drugs where near by when Houston died, noted that “you probably have just as many prescription bottles in your medicine cabinet”.

Houston’s body was flown from California to New Jersey yesterday, being driven in a gold hearse from Teterboro airport to Newark. The city’s New Hope Baptist Church, where Houston first began singing in public, has become a mini-shrine to the pop star, with the BBC reporting that fans and mourners have left flowers, balloons and candles outside the building. It is thought her family are planning a public memorial service, though details of that so far remain sketchy.

Elsewhere, Houston’s long-term record label Sony Music was yesterday accused of attempting to cash in on the singer’s premature death when it was revealed that the major raised the wholesale price of the digital version of the singer’s ‘Ultimate Collection’ compilation around twelve hours after she was pronounced dead.

While it’s not clear where within the Sony Music empire the price hike was initiated, it had an immediate effect on the price of the album within the iTunes store in the UK, with the published price jumping from £4.99 to £7.99. Apple subsequently revised the price of the record – currently at number two in the iTunes chart – back to £4.99 later on Sunday, though it’s not clear if Apple or Sony are taking the hit on that.

Neither company has so far commented on the matter, though a source told The Guardian that the price hike occurred when, after the news of Houston’s death broke, someone at Sony reviewed what stock was available via iTunes and noticed the price for ‘The Ultimate Collection’ had been set too low, and therefore corrected that error. Which may well be true, though hiking the price of what was likely to be the most popular Whitney record on iTunes amongst those more casual fans rushing to download her music in the wake of her death is clearly going to look bad.