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. 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.

Background

"What Is Love" was written and produced by German music producer and composer Dee Dee Halligan and his partner/wife Junior Torello of Coconut Records in Hennef 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. He had lived in the US before moving to Germany. Haddaway didn't actually want to be a solo artist. He just wanted to be a producer, but to help a friend at Coconut that needed to pay the bills, he agreed to do some songs for his friend.
The producers of "What Is Love" 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", 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. At first, it was difficult to sell the song. Haddaway told in 2018, "Nobody wanted it. Every radio station said no. All the record companies said no. Everybody turned us down. And we got very lucky. There was a new radio station opening in Cologne at the WDR and yeah, they used 'What Is Love' as a jingle. And we sent it out to like a thousand DJs to see what they thought about it and everyone gave a thumbs-up."

Chart performance

"What Is Love" reached number one in 13 countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, and Zimbabwe. 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.

Critical reception

Upon the release, Larry Flick from Billboard magazine 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 reminiscent "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 a score of 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".

Retrospective response

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".

Music video

The accompanying music video of "What Is Love" was directed by German music video director Volker Hannwacker and produced by AVA Studios. 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.

Accolades

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Formats and track listings

;"What Is Love"
  • CD single / 7"
  1. "What Is Love" – 4:28
  2. "Sing About Love" – 3:12
  • 12" maxi-single
  1. "What Is Love" – 6:40
  2. "What Is Love" – 4:27
  3. "What Is Love" – 5:00
  4. "Sing About Love" – 4:40
  • CD single, United Kingdom
  1. "What Is Love" – 3:57
  2. "What Is Love" – 5:00
  3. "What Is Love" – 6:40
  4. "What Is Love" – 6:00
  5. "What Is Love" – 5:42
  • CD maxi, France
  1. "What Is Love" – 4:29
  2. "What Is Love" – 6:40
  3. "What Is Love" – 5:02
  4. "Sing About Love" – 4:36
;"What Is Love" – remix
  • CD single, France
  1. "What Is Love" – 4:19
  2. "What Is Love" – 3:52
  • CD maxi
  1. "What Is Love" – remix – 6:54
  2. "What Is Love" – 6:00
  3. "What Is Love" – 4:27
;"What Is Love" – reloaded
  • CD maxi
  1. "What Is Love" – reloaded – 3:16
  2. "What Is Love" – reloaded – 6:09
  3. "What Is Love" – reloaded – 6:39
  4. "What Is Love" – reloaded – 5:32
  5. "What Is Love" – reloaded – 6:48
  6. "What Is Love" – reloaded – 2:56
  7. "What Is Love" – reloaded – 6:21