An article marking the anniversary of Reba McEntire's 1992 double-Platinum certification for her album "For My Broken Heart" recounts how the country star turned personal tragedy into one of the biggest commercial successes of her career. The album was the first she recorded after a March 1991 plane crash near San Diego's Otay Mountain killed eight members of her band and crew; McEntire had stayed behind overnight and was not on board. It matters as an example of an artist channelling grief directly into her work, with McEntire crediting the recording process as central to her own healing.

Released in 1991, "For My Broken Heart" produced two number-one singles, the title track and "Is There Life Out There", plus a well-known cover of "The Night The Lights Went Out in Georgia", which peaked at number 12. On 20 July 1992 the record achieved double-Platinum status from the RIAA after selling two million copies, and it spent 20 consecutive weeks in the Billboard Hot 200's Top 10, McEntire's highest chart run at the time. She has said the album's deeply personal, largely sombre songs resonated because listeners connected the lyrics to their own experiences.