Critical Reception
"I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)" received mixed reviews from critics. Vince Aletti of Rolling Stone magazine, in a review of the album Whitney, criticized the song, commenting that "not taking any chances, the songwriters have simply come up with a clever anagram of their original hit, and 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 wrote about the song, "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 its review of Whitney, Jon Pareles of The New York Times gave a negative comment, writing that listening to "I Wanna Dance with Somebody" 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, is definitive '80s dance-pop." Blender Magazine ranked the song #275 in their Top 500 Greatest Songs list.
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