“I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)” is a song recorded by American singer Whitney Houston, released in April 1987 by Arista Records as the leading single from her second studio album, Whitney. 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, including three consecutive number one singles. 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 The song’s lyrics depict a woman seeking a special person to “dance in the life with” forever.
It was shortly afterwards that they came up with a song they originally titled “Dance With Somebody”. Rubicam explained the idea behind the song: I pictured somebody single wishing that they could find that special person for themselves. It wasn’t, ‘I wanna go down the disco and dance,’ really. It was, ‘I wanna do that dance of life with somebody.’ That was the thought behind the song. So we sent our demo version off to Clive Davis and he loved it
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 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, colourful 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 485 million views as of January 2025 on YouTube.
The song won Houston the AMA for favourite 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.
