A song by Whitney Houston for her second studio album, Whitney, is “I Wanne Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)” (1987). Arista Records released it on May 2, 1987, as the album’s first single. Houston worked with Boy Meets Girl’s George Merrill and Shannon Rubicam on the song’s lyrics, which were produced by Narada Michael Walden and written by Houston and the band.
Music reviewers had mixed feelings about Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me),” praising her vocal delivery but critiquing the song’s arrangement, likening it to “How Will I Know” and Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” After receiving mixed reviews, the song topped the charts in 18 countries, including Australia, Italy, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Having sold more than 6 million copies in the United States, it has been certified 6x platinum. This is Houston’s fourth straight number-one single in the country. I Wanna Dance with Somebody Who Loves Me” won Best Female Pop Vocal Performance at the Grammy Awards, Houston’s second Grammy triumph in the category this time around.
Before “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me),” George Merrill and Shannon Rubicam, who had written Houston’s 1985 hit “How Will I Know,” had been requested to write another song for Houston’s then-new album. As originally conceived by Merrill and Rubicam as a tribute to Houston, “Waiting for a Star to Fall” became a top 10 hit in the United States and United Kingdom for Boy Meets Girl. The band submitted it to Arista Records, but the label rejected it since it wasn’t appropriate for Houston. Without giving up, the duo continued their search for the perfect song for Houston and were eventually inspired to come up with “I Want to Dance with Someone.” The song’s concept was later revealed by Rubicam, who said:
I imagined a lone individual yearning that they could discover the person of their dreams.. Not quite ‘I want to go down to the disco and dance’ but something close. ‘I want to perform that dance of life with someone else.’ That was the underlying theme of the music. So we submitted a demo to Clive Davis, and he was blown away by the results.
To the dismay of “How Will I Know” producer Narada Michael Walden, the song failed to impress.
At first, he wasn’t too keen about Houston recording the song since he believed it was too “country and western sounding.” He eventually came around to the song’s potential. He said the following about it:
It made me think of an Olivia Newton-John-singing rodeo tune. When it came to Whitney Houston, Olivia Newton-John just didn’t fit the bill for me. An upbeat vibe was missing from the music. I lay in bed, daydreaming about it, and awoke wondering what I was going to do with this dancing tune. What happened next was magical, Houston simply hit it out of the park, and then I knew we had a terrific record.
The drum machine percussion in the song was created with a Roland TR-808.
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I Wanna Dance With Somebody Reaction From The Public
Critics gave “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)” a mixed reception. Vince Aletti of Rolling Stone magazine slammed the song in a review of Whitney, saying that “not taking any chances, [Merill Griffith and Shannon Rubicam] have simply come up with a clever anagram of their original hit [How Will I Know], and [Narada Michael] Walden has glossed it over in an identically perky style.” Here we have ‘How Will I Know II,’ which follows in the footsteps of Hollywood blockbuster sequels. As Robert Hilburn of the Los Angeles Times put it, “a gloriously rowdy melody with the synthesiser background and gleeful spark of Cyndi Lauper’s ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun.'”
“I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)” and “You’re Still My Man,” another song on Whitney, were like “watching television while someone fiddles with colour controls,” said Jon Pareles of The New York Times in his review of Whitney.
With a “parenthetical title,” “gummy bassline,” “schmaltz,” “tinkling keyboards,” and a “half-step key shift,” the song “is defining 1980s dance music,” according to Slant Magazine in their 2006 list of the 100 Greatest Dance Songs.
American Music Awards, January 25, 1988: I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me) was named Favorite Rock or Pop/Rock Single.
On March 2, 1988, Houston won the Grammy Award for “Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female” for her performance of the song at the 30th annual Grammy Awards. March 30, 1988 saw a nomination for the song’s music video at the 2nd Soul Train Music Awards for “Best Music Video.” During the first Garden State Music Awards, Houston took home the “Best Music Video” prize for the video he directed. In 2015, the song was named the seventh most popular 1980s number one by the British audience in a survey conducted by ITV. ‘I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)’ was placed 231st by Rolling Stone in their revised list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2021.
On May 1, 1987, the first single from Houston’s second studio album, “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me),” was made available as a download for the general public. As of May 16, 1987, it was at number 38 on the Billboard Hot 100; this was her highest debut in the 1980s. Houston’s fourth number-one single in the United States was released on June 27, 1987, the same day as Whitney debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 (previously “Top Pop Albums”) for the first time ever by a female artist.
A total of nine weeks in the top 10 were spent by this song (more than any other that year) and it was in the charts for 18 weeks. For two weeks, the song topped the Hot 100 Single Sales list and three weeks, the Hot 100 Airplay chart, it was her longest-ever number-one run. For three weeks on the Hot Dance/Club Songs list, Houston’s remixed dance/club version by Steve Thompson and Michael Barbiero was the first chart-topper, while the original song spent two weeks at the top of the Hot Adult Contemporary chart. Billboard’s Hot R&B/Hip Hop Songs chart (formerly “Hot Black Singles”) peaked at number two on the day of its release, on July 4, 1987. For two weeks, it was number two on the R&B chart behind Stephanie Mills’ “I Feel Good All Over” (which never reached the Hot 100).
As of February 13, 1989, when the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) changed its certification standards, Houston’s first song to reach Platinum status had been certified Gold on July 28, 1987, for a shipment of 1,000,000 copies.
Gold and platinum discs were harder to come by before January 1, 1989 because of the increased volume of sales necessary. The gold and platinum sales requirements were set at 1,000,000 and 2,000,000 copies, respectively, reflecting the decline in singles sales. A year after its release, it peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100. The song debuted in Canada at number 74 on the RPM Top 100 Singles list on May 9, 1987 and peaked at number one on July 4, 1987. As a result, it came in at number two on the 1987 RPM Year-End Top 100 Singles list. In 1988, the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) certified the song Gold.
At the time, the song was her most popular single internationally. In fourteen countries, it was the number one hit song. During the week of May 23, 1987, the song entered the UK Singles Chart at number 10. Her second UK number-one single came two weeks later, on June 6, 1987, when it peaked at the top of the charts. August 1, 1987, the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) certified the song Gold for 400,000 copies shipped. It was the first UK number one success to be published on a CD single, according to The Official Charts Company, which has reported sales of 760,000 copies.
While the song was at number one for a week in Austria and Ireland, it also topped the singles chart in Belgium for three weeks, the Netherlands for four weeks,Germany for five weeks, Italy for a week, Norway for seven weeks, Sweden for six weeks, and Switzerland for six weeks. For eight weeks, the song topped the European Hot 100 Singles chart as a result of its widespread popularity in Europe. On the Australian Kent Music Report chart, it was Houston’s second number-one song, and it remained at the top for a whole five weeks. On the New Zealand Singles Chart, Houston’s first number-one hit in the nation, the song peaked at number one and stayed there for four weeks.
I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)” was an international hit, selling 4.2 million copies of the song.
It was Houston’s second posthumous Top 40 success after “I Will Always Love You,” which returned to the Billboard Hot 100 after her death and debuted at number 35.
I Wanna Dance With Somebody A Music Video
“I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)” was directed by Brian Grant and choreographed by Arlene Phillips, who previously collaborated with Houston on the music video for “How Will I Know”. The video shows Houston in a pink dress with a purple background that never changes its point of view. After a performance, Houston appears in this video’s beginning. Scenes of her walking backstage are intercut with photos of her that are brighter and more vibrant. When the song begins, Houston is shown in a variety of locales and in a variety of dresses while dancers strive to impress her. This song ends with her manhandling an unseen person and begging him “Don’t you want to dance, say you want to dance?”. To now in October of the year 2021, it has received over 306 million views on YouTube.
I Wanna Dance With Somebody-Performance In Real Time
Almost all of Houston’s international and regional tours included this song. During the last gigs of the Greatest Love World Tour in 1986, she performed the song for the first time, along with “Didn’t We Almost Have It All,” for the first time, announcing them as new songs from her future album. Houston performed the song live on television shows such as Domenica In (an Italian entertainment program), the Montreux Golden Rose Rock Festival: IM&MC Gala (May 15, 1987), and Top of the Pops (May 21, 1987), unlike several other artists who lip-synched on the show.
During Houston’s 1987-88 Moment of Truth World Tour, she performed it as the tour’s closing number. A back-up dancer was not used on the tour’s North American leg (1987) but was used for its Europe-based tour (1989). (1988). The song was performed twice, first at the 4th MTV Video Music Awards on September 11, 1987, and once at Wembley Arena in London, England on May 28, 1988. The first performance was taped in Saratoga Springs, New York, and shown on MTV. The second was culled from a 1988 special broadcast of nine sold-out performances in London’s Wembley Arena by Italian television network Rai Uno. To get things off, Houston sang this song at the Grammy Awards on March 2nd of that year. On June 11, 1988, she sang the song at Wembley Stadium in front of about 72,000 people as part of the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute Concert during the European leg of the tour.
As part of her 14-date Feels So Right Tour, Houston also played “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)” in Japan. In Yokohama Arena on January 7, 1990, the song was taped and afterwards transmitted on Japanese television. Arista Records’ 15th Anniversary AIDS Benefit Concert was telecast on CBS on April 17, 1990, and she performed the song live on March 17th. It was featured in Whitney Houston Live: Her Greatest Performances, a CD and DVD set released in 2014.
With “I Wanna Dance (With Somebody) (Who Loves Me),” Houston launched her I’m Your Baby Tonight World Tour in 1991. There were three different recordings and broadcasts of the song: the first was in Yokohama, Japan on March 15, the second was in Norfolk, Virginia on March 31 and later released as the video of the same name; the third was in A Corua, Spain on September 29 and was included in her first hour-long special, This Is My Life.
The Bodyguard played “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)” on their 1993–94 world tour. It was recorded and aired five times during the tour: four times in South America (in Brazil, Chile, Argentina, and Venezuela) and a fifth time in South Africa (in Johannesburg, South Africa), with the concert titled The Concert for a New South Africa and broadcast live via satellite on HBO on November 12, 1994. As part of a pregame entertainment for the 1994 FIFA World Cup Final in Los Angeles, Houston sang the song for a quarter of a minute.
I Wanna Dance with Somebody Who Loves Me” was performed on both the Pacific Rim Tour and the European Tour (1998). On the 1999 My Love Is Your Love World Tour, the remixed version of the song was included in a “1980s Dance Medley,” which also included “How Will I Know” from the album. During the tour’s stop in Poland, Sopot, a live version of the song was taped and shown on TVP1 on August 22, 1999. Houston performed the song at Arista Records 25th Anniversary Celebration on April 10 in Los Angeles and televised it on NBC on May 15 in a rendition identical to her 1999 tour.
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