Whitney Houston's 'I Will Always Love You' Makes Rare Billboard Top 10 Comeback

Whitney Houston's signature 1992 hit I Will Always Love You has re-entered Billboard's Hot 100 chart at #7 in the wake of her death, a historic move for a single.

It's not unusual for an artist's death to kick up album sales, but a recurrent single in the top 10 is rare. Extra radio play-time and a staggering 6,723 percent increase in digital sales, according to Nielsen SoundScan, has brought the famous song written by Dolly Parton back up on the chart. On Thursday it was place above David Guetta and Nicki Minaj's Turn Me On, and under Rihanna's We Found Love.

Nielson BDS also reported that I Will Always Love You, which topped the Hot 100 chart for 14 weeks, experienced a leap in radio airplay by 915 percent, according to MTV News.

Houston's surging single has led Billboard to change their charting policy. Traditionally, older songs are ineligible for Hot 100 list, but Billboard director Silvio Pietroluongo said they are now allowing recurrent songs to return.

Going forward, we feel that it is the proper move to allow older titles posting enough activity to return to the Hot 100 ranking in the chart's upper half, he said.

It's not the first time Billboard charted an old single making its way back up the chart. In 2001, following the Sept. 11 attacks, Hot 100 welcomed back Lee Greenwood's 1984 country his God Bless the USA and Houston's version of The Star-Spangled Banner, according to Billboard.

Other artists have experienced significant posthumous album sales after their tragic deaths. Amy Winehouse's Lioness: Hidden Treasures, which features never-before-published songs, topped the U.K. album chart, according to the BBC. Sales of The Best of Etta James--20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection increased by 378 percent after the singer's death, according to U.K. music blog Uncut.