Is it Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Madonna, Britney Spears, Barbra Streisand, Bonnie Raitt or someone else completely?

The answer is Miss Barbra Streisand.  

This week, 50 years ago Barbra Streisand entered the the Billboard charts for the first time.  Streisand, a Brooklyn native, had not even turned 21 yet when her debut album charted and she has kept doing things her way ever since.  

The Barbra Streisand Album was the first of her records to hit the top 10.  This would be the first of 32 top 10 albums for Streisand which is far and away more than any other female singer in history.  That same record won Streisand her first Grammy at the young age of 22 in May 1964.  That record stood for almost 30 years until Alanis Morissette won it in February 1996 when she was just 21 and recently Taylor Swift broke Morissette's record in January 2010, when she was just 20.

Here is a run down of some of the records she still holds after 50 years in the music business:

Most No. 1 albums by a female artist (9).  Madonna is second with 8. Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson and Britney Spears are tied for third place with 6 each.

Longest span of No. 1 albums by a female artist.  Streisand landed her first No. 1 album, People, on Oct. 31, 1964. She scored her most recent, Love Is The Answer, on Oct. 17, 2009. That gives her a nearly 45 year span of No. 1 albums. Only one artist in chart history, Elvis Presley, has had a longer span of No. 1 albums. The King first topped the chart in May 1956 with Elvis Presley and scored most recently in October 2002 with Elv1s: 30 No. 1 Hits, a span of more than 46 years.

Only solo artist (male or female) with at least one No. 1 album in each of the last five decades.  (John Lennon and Paul McCartney have also achieved this feat, but only in combination with their Beatles work).

Most top 10 albums by a female artist (32). This includes three movie soundtracks, two TV soundtracks, a Broadway cast album, three compilations and three live albums. Among women, Madonna is in second place with 20, followed by Mariah Carey with 16.

Most Grammy nominations by a female artist for Album of the Year by (6).  Whitney Houston, Bonnie Raitt, Mariah Carey and Lady Gaga are tied for second place among women, with 3 nominations each with one female group, Dixie Chicks, has also having 3.