I was looking for some new acapellas to remix, and was delighted to come across Whitney Houston’s vocal stem from “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me).” The 808-cowbell-laden production has undeniable charm, but the vocals by themselves are the real truth.
I also have a soft spot for David Byrne’s cover, especially the string arrangement.
“I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)” was written by Boy Meets Girl, who also wrote “How Will I Know” for Whitney, and who had a delightful 80s-tastic hit of their own with “Waiting For A Star To Fall“. Whitney’s recording was produced by Narada Michael Walden, whose long and varied resume includes a stint as the drummer for the Mahavishnu Orchestra during the Apocalypse/Visions of the Emerald Beyond era. This band made some of the silliest music of all time, but also some of the most sublime, often within the same track.
So, anyway, much as I love Walden’s original production, having the acapella means I get to re-imagine the song to suit my own tastes. I tried a lot of samples underneath it before settling on some long excerpts of “It’s About That Time” by Miles Davis, along with some of my own programmed beats. My remix got taken down from SoundCloud, but you can download it by clicking the image below.
When I was reading up on the song, I saw some critics’ reviews of it from back when it was released, some of which compared it unfavorably to “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” I don’t agree or disagree with that assessment; it’s funny to think of having an opinion about something that’s such a permanent-seeming fixture of the musical landscape. It would be like having an opinion about the moon, or the Pacific Ocean.