I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)

"I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)" is a song recorded by American singer Whitney Houston, released on April 28, 1987 by Arista Records as the leading single from her second studio album, Whitney. It was written by George Merrill and Shannon Rubicam, of the band Boy Meets Girl, the songwriters of Houston's previous hit, "How Will I Know", and produced by Narada Michael Walden. The song's lyrics depict a woman seeking a special person to "dance in the life with" forever.
Upon its release, the song initially received mixed reviews from music critics, who praised Houston's vocal performance but critiqued its musical arrangement comparing it to "How Will I Know" and Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun", Despite its initial mixed critical response, the song became a worldwide success, reaching number one in eighteen countries including Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom. In the United States, it became Houston's fourth consecutive number one single.
The song won Houston the American Music Award for favorite pop song and the Grammy Award for best female pop vocal performance and also helped Walden win a Grammy for producer of the year, non-classical. The song later received critical reappraisal and has since made several best-of lists, including Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and was named the best pop song of all time by Billboard in 2023. The single has sold over 11.6 million certified copies globally, including over seven million copies alone in the United States, making it one of the best-selling singles of all time. The song cemented Houston’s status as a global pop star.
By the late summer of 1986, Houston had achieved global success with her self-titled debut album. Released in February 1985, the album had produced four top ten singles on the Billboard Hot 100, including three consecutive number one singles, "Saving All My Love for You", "How Will I Know" and "Greatest Love of All", which had made Houston the first female recording artist to produce three number one singles from a single album and the first female solo artist to produce three consecutive number one singles on the Billboard Hot 100 and the first all-female act to do so since The Supremes more than twenty years prior. That summer, Houston embarked on her first world tour while her boss, Arista Records head Clive Davis, began plans for Houston's sophomore follow-up to her landmark debut album.
While Houston's debut had produced a series of love ballads, Davis sought for a more accessible sound for the follow-up. Noting the success of "How Will I Know", written by George Merrill and Shannon Rubicam, of the band Boy Meets Girl, Davis sought the songwriters again to compose the next big pop hit for Houston, with the producer and fellow co-writer of "How Will I Know", Narada Michael Walden again brought in to produce the song. Merrill and Rubicam felt they had a hit when in the previous year, while attending Houston's show at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, they quickly wrote the song, "Waiting for a Star to Fall" and soon gave Davis a demo of the song, to which Davis turned down, believing it wasn't suitable for Houston to record, but encouraged the duo to come with a stronger song.
It was shortly afterwards that they came up with a song they originally titled "Dance With Somebody". Rubicam explained the idea behind the song:
Davis immediately approved of the song, as did Houston, who Davis played the song for back at his Arista Records office in Manhattan. However, Walden was not as impressed.
The producer took a little more persuading with regard to the song's potential, and at first was not too keen on having Houston record it, as he felt it was too "country and western sounding." Walden also called the song "definitely white pop" and was determined to make the song "blacker, funkier and more raw".
He said of it:
For the song's production, a Roland TR-808 was used to produce the drum machine percussion. The Baptist-reared Houston got more creative with the song, producing vocal ad-libs and adding additional lyrics on the bridge and ending vamp. The recording took place around September of 1986 with post-production from Walden and additional vocal ad-libs from Houston.
"I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)" received mixed reviews from critics upon its release in 1987. Vince Aletti of Rolling Stone magazine, in a review of the album Whitney, criticized the song, commenting that "not taking any chances, the songwriters [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. The strategy is not so different from that behind Hollywood's blockbuster sequels: this is 'How Will I Know II'." Los Angeles Times's pop music critic, Robert Hilburn described the song as "a deliciously raucous tune with a bit of the synthesizer underpinning and giddy zest of Cyndi Lauper's 'Girls Just Want to Have Fun.'"
In his review of Whitney, Jon Pareles of The New York Times gave a negative comment, writing that listening to "I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)" and "You're Still My Man," another track on the album was like "watching television while someone fiddles with color controls." In 2006, Slant Magazine ranked the song at #88 in their 100 Greatest Dance Songs, commenting that "with its parenthetical title, gummy bassline, schmaltzy horns, tinkling keyboards, and half-step key changes, [the song] is definitive '80s dance-pop." By 2020, the publication's staff had reranked it to #58.
"I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)" won the award for "Favorite Pop/Rock Single" at the 15th American Music Awards on January 25, 1988. Additionally, Houston won the Grammy award for "Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female" with the song at its 30th ceremony on March 2, 1988, where she received a total of three nominations. The music video for the song was nominated for "Best Music Video" at the 2nd Soul Train Music Awards on March 30, 1988. Houston won the award for "Best Music Video" for the video at the 1st Garden State Music Awards. In 2015 the song was voted by the British public as the nation's fifth favourite 1980s number one in a poll for ITV. In 2021, Rolling Stone ranked "I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)" at number 231 on their updated list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. In 2023, Billboard ranked the song number one on their list of the 500 Best Pop Songs of All Time.
"I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)" was released as the first single from Houston's second studio album on radio stations on April 28, 1987. It entered the Billboard Hot 100, the issue dated May 16, 1987, at number 38, her highest chart debut at the time, and her highest of the 1980s. Six weeks later, it reached the top spot of the chart, making it Houston's fourth number-one single in the United States, the issue date of June 27, 1987 ― the same day that Houston's album Whitney debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 (known at the time as "Top Pop Albums") the first time ever by a female artist. It would top the chart for two weeks in a row and spent a total of eighteen weeks on the chart, including nine weeks inside the top ten, which produced the most weeks inside the top ten more than any other song released in 1987.
The song reached number one on the Hot 100 Single Sales chart for two weeks, and on the Hot 100 Airplay chart for three weeks, her longest run at that time. The single also peaked at number one on the Hot Adult Contemporary and the remixed dance / club version by Steve Thompson and Michael Barbiero became Houston's first chart-topper on the Billboard Hot Dance/Club Play Songs, staying on the top position of the charts for three weeks and two weeks, respectively. In addition, it reached a peak of two on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart (known then as "Hot Black Singles"), the issue date of July 4, 1987. It remained at that position for two weeks, behind "I Feel Good All Over" by Stephanie Mills (which never appeared on the Hot 100 at all), and spent 15 weeks on the R&B chart. Paul Grein of Billboard noted the success of the song on the adult contemporary and R&B charts despite its accessible dance-pop sound "dramatizes how solidly entrenched Houston is and underscores her mass appeal".
On July 28, 1987, the single was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), for shipment of 1,000,000 copies of the single, and re-certified Platinum, making it Houston's first single to achieve that feat, for the same shipment on February 13, 1989, with the change of the RIAA certification criteria for singles. (The number of sales required to qualify for gold and platinum discs was higher prior to January 1, 1989. The thresholds were 1,000,000 units (gold) and 2,000,000 units (platinum), reflecting a decrease in sales of singles. It placed at number four on the Billboard Year-End Top Pop Singles chart for 1987. In Canada, the song debuted at 74 on the RPM Top 100 Singles chart, the issue dated May 9, 1987, and reached the top of the chart on July 4, 1987. It was ranked second on the RPM Year-End Top 100 Singles chart for 1987. The single was later certified Gold by the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) on February 29, 1988.
Internationally, the song was a massive hit, becoming her most successful single at the time. It reached number one in eighteen countries. The song debuted at number 10 on the UK Singles Chart, the week ending date of May 23, 1987. Two weeks later, it reached number one on the chart, the week ending June 6, 1987, becoming her second UK number-one single. The single was certified Gold by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) on August 1, 1987, for shipments of 400,000 copies. According to The Official Charts Company, it has sold 760,000 copies in the United Kingdom and was the first number one hit to be released with a CD single in the UK.
The single 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, and peaked inside top five in Austria and Ireland. This popularity of the single across Europe led to the song topping the European Hot 100 Singles chart for eight weeks. It became Houston's second number-one single on the Australian Kent Music Report chart, staying at the top for five weeks. The song also peaked at number one on the New Zealand Singles Chart and remained there for four weeks, making it Houston's first number-one single in the country.
"I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)" has sold over 11.6 million certified copies worldwide. After Houston's death, the single returned to the Billboard Hot 100 debuting at number 35 the same week "I Will Always Love You" re-entered at number 7, giving her two posthumous Top 40 hits. The following week, the song reached number 25. With "Greatest Love of All" reaching number 36 and "I Will Always Love You" reaching number three, it made Houston the first posthumous artist to land three top 40 singles on the Billboard Hot 100. In July 2023, the song amassed one billion audio streams on Spotify, the first of Houston's songs to do so. Houston was only the second female artist to reach this feat with a 1980s single after Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill".
The music video for "I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)" was filmed in New York City in March 1987. It was directed by Brian Grant and choreographed by Arlene Phillips, who also worked with Houston on the music video for "How Will I Know". It played on MTV in heavy rotation, which it premiered on May 30, 1987. The video features Houston in a purple dress and a continuous shot of a purple backdrop that never changes its angle of vision. In the intro of this video, Houston just finishes a performance onstage. She walks backstage, and the scene is intercut with more vivid, colorful images of her. The song then explodes into its beginning, with myriad locations and various outfits by Houston, as dancers trying to impress her as she dances. Towards the end of the song she manhandles a guy, who has a mixture of a look of shock and surprise asking him "Don't you wanna dance say you wanna dance". The video was remastered in 4K to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the release of the Whitney album and has over 497 million views as of April 2025 on YouTube.
Houston performed the song on almost all of her world and regional tours. She premiered its usage during the later shows of The Greatest Love World Tour in 1986, before its official release of the following year, introducing the song, along with "Didn't We Almost Have It All", as new tunes from her upcoming album. During her European promotion for a new album from April–May 1987, Houston performed the song on various television series such as Domenica In (an Italian entertainment programme), the Montreux Golden Rose Rock Festival: IM&MC Gala (May 15, 1987), and Top of the Pops (May 21, 1987), where she sang live, unlike some other performers who lip-synched on the programme.
Houston's Moment of Truth World Tour in 1987–88 had her performing it as the finale song of the tour. She performed it without back-up dancers on the North American leg (1987), and with four dancers on the European leg of the tour (1988). Two different performances of the song were recorded in Saratoga Springs, New York on September 2, 1987, and at Wembley Arena in London, United Kingdom in May 1988; the first was broadcast on MTV, during the 4th MTV Video Music Awards on September 11, 1987. The second was taken from one night of nine sold-out Wembley Arena concerts, aired by Italian channel Rai Uno on a special program for her in 1988. On March 2, 1988, Houston opened the night of the 30th Annual Grammy Awards singing the song. During the European leg of the tour, she participated in the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute Concert and performed the song in front of about 72,000 people at Wembley Stadium on June 11, 1988.
Houston also performed "I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)" as part of her set on fourteen-date Feels So Right Tour in Japan. One performance of the song on the tour was recorded at Yokohama Arena on January 7, 1990, and later broadcast on Japanese television. On March 17, she sang the song live on That's What Friends Are For: Arista Records 15th Anniversary AIDS Benefit Concert, televised on CBS on April 17, 1990. This performance was included in the 2014 CD/DVD release, Whitney Houston Live: Her Greatest Performances.
In 1991, Houston opened her I'm Your Baby Tonight World Tour with "I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)". Three different performances of the song were taped and broadcast: the first was in Yokohama, Japan on March 15 and the second was in Norfolk, Virginia, the concert itself entitled Welcome Home Heroes, televised live on HBO on March 31 and later released as the video of the same name; the third was in A Coruña, Spain on September 29, broadcast on a Spanish television channel and later featured on the select set-list on This Is My Life, her first hour-long special which aired on ABC, May 6, 1992.
"I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)" was also performed during The Bodyguard World Tour (1993–94). On the tour, five different performances of the song were recorded and televised; four were on the South American leg of the tour in 1994 ― Brazil, Chile, Argentina and Venezuela ― and one was in Johannesburg, South Africa, broadcast live via satellite on HBO on November 12, 1994, the concert itself entitled The Concert for a New South Africa. Houston also performed the song at a 25-minute pregame show of the 1994 FIFA World Cup Final at Rose Bowl in Los Angeles, broadcast in more than 180 countries on July 17, 1994.
"I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)" was included in the set-list on two regional tours, The Pacific Rim Tour (1997) and The European Tour (1998). During the My Love Is Your Love World Tour of 1999, the remix version of the song was performed as a part of '1980s Dance Medley' along with "How Will I Know". One performance of the song on the tour was recorded in Sopot, Poland and broadcast live on Polish channel TVP1 on August 22, 1999. In 2000, Houston performed the song as a similar version to that of her '99 tour at Arista Records 25th Anniversary Celebration, recorded at Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles on April 10, and broadcast on May 15 on NBC.
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