THE YEAR IS 1992!
- Haddaway (born Alexander Nestor Haddaway, January 9, 1965) is a Trinidadian Eurodance and House musician. He grew up in Europe and the United States, and has lived in Cologne, Germany since 1989. This was his only big hit in the US, but he had several more in Europe.
- Although the song is an upbeat dance track, the lyrics are rather gut-wrenching, as Haddaway sings about trying to love a girl who won’t love him back.\
- The song was written by Haddway’s producers, Dee Dee Halligan and Junior Torello. Halligan is a German producer who also goes by the name Tony Hendrik, and Torello is a female producer/lyricist better known as Karin Hartmann. Together, they formed the label Coconut Records, which signed Wolfgang Petry and Andreas Martin. As Halligan tells it, Haddaway was singing on demos in the basement of Coconut’s studios when he decided to have him record “What Is Love.” Coconut released the single in Germany in 1992, and later that year it was picked up by the UK label Logic and the American label Arista. In the UK, it made #2 in June 1993, and in the US it reached its #11 peak position in October 1993.
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This song gained popularity when it was used in a recurring Saturday Night Live sketch about three guys who go clubbing. They dress alike – in outdated fashion – and torment women at the clubs by forcing their dancing upon them. There is very little dialogue in the sketches, and this song plays throughout, with the three men bobbing their heads in unison. In 1998, the skit was extended to a full-lenth movie called A Night At The Roxbury.
The two regular performers in the skit (and movie) were SNL cast members Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan. The host of the show would often be their third man in the bits – Jim Carrey and Sylvester Stallone each did a turn as the head-bobbing swingers.
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