What Is Love

"What Is Love" is a song by Trinidadian-German singer Haddaway, released as his debut single from his debut album, The Album (1993). The song, both written and produced by Dee Dee Halligan and Karin Hartmann-Eisenblätter, was released by Coconut Records in January 1993. It was a hit across Europe, becoming a number-one single in at least 13 countries and reaching number two in Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Outside Europe, the single peaked at number 11 in the United States, number 12 in Australia, number 17 in Canada, and number 48 in New Zealand.
"What Is Love" earned Haddaway two awards at the German 1994 Echo Award, in the categories "Best National Single" and "Best National Dance Single." The music video for "What Is Love" was directed by Volker Hannwacker and received heavy rotation on music television such as MTV Europe. The song remains Haddaway's most popular and signature song.
"What Is Love" was written and produced by German music producer and composer Dee Dee Halligan (Dieter Lünstedt a.k.a. Tony Hendrik) and his partner/wife Junior Torello (Karin Hartmann-Eisenblätter a.k.a. Karin van Haaren) of Coconut Records in Hennef (Sieg) near Cologne. They had previously produced songs for successful groups like Bad Boys Blue and Londonbeat, and were waiting for the right singer for their new song. Trinidadian-born singer Nestor Alexander Haddaway was then chosen to sing it. He used to work as a producer, dancer and choreographer before he was signed to the label.
The producers wanted Haddaway to try singing the song in the style of Joe Cocker. He told them, "I love Joe Cocker, but I'm no Joe Cocker." He then came up with his own idea of how to sing it and the producers let the singer try it his way. Hendrik would lock himself in the studio, and eight or nine days later he came out with the song as was released. Haddaway told Simon Price of Melody Maker in 1994, that the song was originally a ballad and arrived after a year in a basement studio, "In the beginning it was like five different pies, then those five pies became one pie."
The female vocal on the track, meanwhile, was a stock sample released on the Zero-G sample compilation CD "Datafile 1" (tracks 62–64), which was produced in 1991 by Zero-G co-founder and Jack 'N' Chill member Ed Stratton, aka Man Machine, and was aimed at dance producers, DJs, programmers and artists.
"What Is Love" reached number one in 13 countries: Austria (9 weeks), Belgium (6 weeks), Denmark (3 weeks), Finland, France (5 weeks), Ireland, Italy (3 weeks), Netherlands (6 weeks), Norway (8 weeks), Portugal (1 week), Spain (4 weeks), Switzerland (5 weeks), and Zimbabwe (4 weeks). In Sweden, Germany and the United Kingdom, it peaked at number two, being kept off the top spot by Snow's "Informer", Ace of Base's "All That She Wants" and Gabrielle's "Dreams". In the latter, the song peaked at number two on the UK Singles Chart in its fifth week on the chart, on 27 June 1993. It stayed at that position for two weeks and within the chart for 16 weeks. Additionally, "What Is Love" was a number three hit in Iceland, and climbed to the number-one position also on the Eurochart Hot 100, where the song debuted fifteen weeks earlier, at number 79 on 13 March 1993, after charting in Germany. It stayed seven consecutive weeks at the top of the chart. Entering at number 87 on 28 August, the song reached number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States. But on the US Cash Box Top 100, it reached the top 10, peaking at number nine. The single also peaked at numbers 12 and 48 in Australia and New Zealand, respectively. By March 1994, worldwide sales of "What Is Love" had already reached 2.6 million.
Upon the release, Larry Flick from Billboard named the song a "glorious pop/house ditty", and stated that "wildly catchy chorus is complemented by a slick, synth-happy arrangement. Haddaway will conjure up images of Seal and Sydney Youngblood with his worldly baritone delivery. A sure-fire dance hit that has the muscle to push its way onto pop formats with ease." Milo Miles from The Boston Globe wrote, "He pours such delicacy and anguish into the short phrases they become loud whispers that stay in the ear. With perfectly lubricated synthesizers bouncing away behind him, Haddaway gets precious mileage out of minimal lyrics." Student newspaper Columbia Daily Spectator said it "will transport you instantly to the golden age of house music." Jim Farber from Daily News noted that 'What Is Love' "uses every sound it has to punch the beat: a stabbing synth line, a tense bass, an uplifting lead vocal and an encouragingly frantic female voice to back it up. It's a sound at once insinuating and insistent, sensual and wild." He also named it "the world's natural followup" to Robin S.' 'Show Me Love'. Dave Sholin from the Gavin Report commented, "Try sitting still seconds after this upbeat entry kicks in." He also noted that Haddaway's style is "reminscent [sic] of the Fine Young Cannibals and just as exciting."
In his weekly UK chart commentary, James Masterton stated that the song "is undoubtedly one of the best soul releases of the year." Pan-European magazine Music & Media remarked that it has a "fast house beat augmented by Nestor Haddaway's deeply soulful vocals. This is definitely on par with anything that has come out of Chicago's deep house scene for quite some time." Wendi Cermak from The Network Forty described the track as "splendiferous", and noted that "the eargasmic synth stabs in the extended mix are pulling even odds in Vegas for dance-floor-filling capability and the edit screams for radio airplay..." Luke Turner from The Quietus felt that 'What Is Love' "bangs because it manages to be two things—a terrific soul tune but also rather stern as well, with infernally naggy synth lines and drilled repetition in the rhythms." Tony Cross from Smash Hits gave it four out of five, writing, "Haddaway's attempt at producing something along the lines of Seal's 'Crazy' hasn't quite been pulled off, but this foot-friendly dance track is still stonking dance-floor stuff. You don't find out what love is, but that doesn't mean you'll be disappointed." Another Smash Hits editor, Pete Stanton, named it "a disco-dancing, ass-grooving, tum-churning corker of a song."
NME ranked 'What Is Love' number two in their list of "Top Five Euro-Hits of All Time" in December 1993, writing, "Haddaway takes one of the fundamental questions of man's existence and puts it to a stomping disco beat. Also features a woman wailing disconsolately in the background whenever Hadders relents from his search." In 1994, Peter Paphides and Simon Price of Melody Maker praised songs such as 'Mr. Vain', 'Rhythm Is a Dancer' and 'What Is Love' as modern classics, "butt-shaking Wagnerian disco monsters. Or, as someone else who knew a thing or two put it: Che Guevara and Debussy to a disco beat."
AllMusic editor Jose F. Promis named 'What Is Love' "one of the 1990s' quintessential dance tunes". In a 2015 retrospective review, Victor Beigelman from The A.V. Club declared it as a "Europop banger that more than 20 years later remains relentlessly catchy and far more profound than it ever had any right to be." Mike Wood from Idolator featured it in their list of "The 50 Best Pop Singles of 1994" in 2014, calling it a "catchy" anthem, that "permeated our collective consciousness given the heavily-repeated airplay".
The accompanying music video of "What Is Love" was directed by German music video director Volker Hannwacker. It features Haddaway in a mansion pursued by three femme fatales, at least one of whom is a vampire. Some scenes feature the singer and the vampire running backwards. Keith Dorwick analyzed the video in his book Love Song, writing, "He is first dressed in a blue suit with a white shirt, but upon being bitten by a white female vampire, he is converted to a boy toy with seeming supernatural powers. Now dressed in tight pants and an open vest that shows off his smooth and surprisingly chiseled chest, he easily leaps onto the fireplace mantel where he begins dancing, then flies down in a smooth leap that demonstrates his new vampiric power." The video received heavy rotation on MTV Europe in May 1993.
(*) indicates the list is unordered.
In 2009, German DJ Klaas remixed the song under the title "Klaas meets Haddaway – What Is Love 2K9". This remix charted in several European countries.
In 2016, Belgian DJ Lost Frequencies released a cover titled "What Is Love 2016", as a single from his debut album Less Is More. It was actually already produced back in 2014 as a remix for Jaymes Young's cover version of "What is Love". This version was remade for the album and became a hit on a number of European singles charts and topped the Belgian Ultratop Official Singles Chart.
An official music video was released directed by Soulvizion. It features the Dutch professional basketball player Don Rigters who plays the role of David Rose, a basketball player who is severely injured trying to make a comeback to the game with encouragement from his girlfriend, (played by Melissa Kanza), his three teammates, (Alkenah Wansing, Jeroen Jansen and Lindy Chippendel) and by his basketball coach (played by J E Rigters).
In the late 1990s, the song was featured in the popular, recurring Saturday Night Live "Roxbury Guys" sketches, in which the characters Steve and Doug Butabi (played by Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan respectively) would wildly bob their heads to the track as they went out nightclubbing and had misadventures. Typically the song would play throughout the sketch, following the brothers wherever they went. The Butabis were sometimes joined by other head-bobbing club-goers portrayed by the show's guests hosts, such as Jim Carrey. In 1998, the sketches spawned a film, A Night at the Roxbury, which prominently featured the song. In the mid-2000s, the sketch became a popular internet meme.
"What Is Love" was also used in the 2013 video game Saints Row IV.
The song was used in the Disney+ series Percy Jackson and the Olympians.
In 1994, "What Is Love" served as the soundtrack to the memorable climax of the "Life of Brian" episode of My So-Called Life, in which Rickie Vasquez and Delia Fisher dance together at their high school's World Happiness Dance.
The song was also sung by Ulysses Klaue (played by Andy Serkis) while being interrogated by Everett K. Ross (played by Martin Freeman) in the 2018 film Black Panther. The scene became an internet meme, and was praised as one of the best scenes in the film.