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"I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)"
Single by Whitney Houston from the album Whitney
Released	May 1987
Format	CD single Cassette single 7" single 12" single
Genre	Pop/R&B
Length	4:52
Label	Arista Records
Writer	George Merrill Shannon Rubicam
Producer	Narada Michael Walden Whitney Houston
Certification	Platinum
Whitney Houston singles chronology
"Greatest Love of All" (1986) "I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)" (1987) "Didn't We Almost Have It All" (1987)

"I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)" was released in May 1987 and is the first single from Whitney Houston's second studio album Whitney. It was written by George Merrill and Shannon Rubicam of the band Boy Meets Girl, who had previously written the number-one hit "How Will I Know", also for Houston. Merrill delivered the demo to Clive Davis on an audio cassette, and Davis had Houston record it. If Davis didn't like the song, Merrill and Rubicam would have recorded it as "Boy Meets Girl".^{[citation needed]}

The song originally had a working title of "I Want To Dance With Somebody", Whitney herself stated that it was the working title while she was on tour in 1986. The song was produced by Narada Michael Walden. The original arrangement of the song did not impress him, as he saw it as more of a country tune than a pop song, so he threw in faster beats and Caribbean percussion to create a dance track.

The song reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on June 27, 1987 (the same day that Houston's album Whitney debuted at number one, the first time ever by a female artist), and remained there for two weeks. It remained in the top forty of the Hot 100 for fourteen weeks, and was ranked fourth on the Year-End Chart.

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, Houston's longest run at that time. It was also a milestone in Houston's career, as it eventually sold enough units to be certified platinum, her first single to achieve this. It was also number one on the Adult Contemporary chart for three weeks, and reached number two on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks. It followed "How Will I Know" to become Houston's second number-one on the Hot Dance Club Play chart.

Internationally, the song became a worldwide smash, and is largely responsible for bringing her to global stardom, becoming Houston's biggest single at that point. It sold over three million copies internationally, setting its sales record at over 4.2 million copies, and reached number one in several other countries, including the United Kingdom, West Germany, Australia, and Switzerland, helping the album Whitney reach number one in all of those countries.

A remix released in 1996 also became moderately successful in its own right, reaching eleven on the chart.

Incidentally, the original demo tape version of "I Wanna Dance With Somebody," as recorded by the songwriters George Merrill and Shannon Rubicam, was released on the multi-artist album Number One With a Bullet on Cypress Records #003276.

• 1988: Grammy Award for "Best Female Pop Vocal Performance"
• 1988: American Music Award for "Favorite Pop/Rock Single"

The song also won "Best Music Video" at the First Annual Garden State (New Jersey) Music Awards. In 1988, Whitney Houston open the night of the 30th Annual Grammy Awards singing "I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)".

1. "I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)" (album version)
2. 12" remix
3. 12" remix — radio edit
4. Dub mix yeah
5. Acappella mix
6. "Moment of Truth"

The video for "I Wanna Dance with Somebody" (directed by Brian Grant) is one of Houston's best recognized music videos. In this light-hearted video, Houston first performs in a black-and-white concert arena. She walks backstage, and the scene is intercut with more vivid, colorful images of her. The song then explodes into its beginning, with a myriad of locations and various outfits by Houston, as dancers trying to impress her as she dances around, just having a good time. At one point she pours a bucket of water on a bad dancer.

Alternate Video Version

There is another version to the video. There are a quite few different parts. Intro-One of the dancers are up in the air w/ eyes behind him, he moves his head as the music starts to play. As the music is playing, Whitney juggles around while dancing to the music. Then the video goes into the version we usually see. There is a few other scenes, but the ending of the video is different to the version you see in the Greatest Hits Collection where she runs off with friends. In the original ending Whitney is surrounded by dancers dancing and just having fun, then at the end the image/video is paused and with whitney looking upward and laughing, then the video fades. This version of the video has been seen on VH1 CLASSIC.

• Shortly after the songs release in 1987, KLF alterego The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu sampled extensively from the song for their composition Whitney Joins The JAMs. Houston never officially joined The Jams.
• In summer 2006, R&B artist Lumidee and Fatman Scoop collaborated and released a song for the FIFA 2006 World Cup soundtrack. The song entitled 'Dance' featured a sample of 'I Wanna Dance With Somebody'.
• In a live concert from Union Chapel former Talking Heads front man David Byrne performed his own "sincere" version.
• Noisettes performed the song live at Fopp London
• The Young Divas have released this track on thier new Album New Attitude as a bonus track for iTunes

"I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)" was ranked fourth on The Billboard Hot 100 Year End Charts (1987), and remained in The Billboard Hot 100 for nineteen weeks.

It was Houston's fourth number-one single on The Billboard Hot 100, her third on The Billboard Hot 100 Airplay, fourth on The Billboard Hot 100 Single Sales, her fourth on The Billboard Adult Contemporary, and her fifth overall Billboard Top Ten hit.