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Music

One-Hit Wondering - Haddaway

What is love? Not making me listen to all six of your albums for a week straight.

Here's how this works: Each week, I listen to the entire discography of a single one-hit wonder band. Then, I let you know if their other songs are worth listening to or not. This week: Haddaway.

What is love? Not this, Haddaway—not making me listen to all six of your albums for a week straight.

Hi, guys. Have you ever tried listening to Haddaway for an entire week? Do you know what it's like? It's…well…intense, to say the least. By the end of it, I was crying, "Baby don't hurt me, no mo," truly realizing the meaning behind those words. To be fair, though, I have only myself to blame for this endeavor. Also, in defense of Haddaway, he may have asked the single most profound question in the history of pop music: what is love? (I keep reading that past sentence over and over and I'm still not sure if I meant it sarcastically or not.) But seriously, I don't really know what love is… do you?? What if we've always brushed that song aside as just a cheesy 90s techno pop tune, but in truth, it's the most thought-provoking song of our time?

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What. Even. I think maybe he is implying that women are vicious, blood-sucking creatures incapable of loving.

The Eurodance club hit became insanely popular in Europe—notably Germany—but it also held its own on the US Billboard charts when it was released in 1993. Basically, it found success pretty much everywhere in the Western world, but those Germans in particular were really down with getting down to Haddaway. In Germany, his debut album went platinum, his other singles found chart success, and "What Is Love" holds up as the nation's 75th best-selling single of all time. Germans. For many of us, though, Haddaway is considered a one-hit wonder and the longevity of the song’s popularity can be much credited to the use of the song in Saturday Night Live's viral skits and subsequent film, A Night at the Roxbury:

I don't think I would even know this song if it weren't for SNL, to be honest.

Due to his prominence in the European club scene, Haddaway is largely known as a German artist, and it's true; he spent a part of his childhood in Germany and moved back in his 20s to live in Cologne (heh, appropriate because listening to his music makes me feel like I am surrounded by a herd of cologne-drenched men). But Haddaway's roots lay in his birthplace, Trinidad, and—get this—Maryland, USA. What the shit? Yeah, when he was still going by his full name, Nestor Alexander Haddaway (and perhaps his nickname "Haddy" was already in effect), the one-hit wonder artist was a marching band nerd in Maryland and later a poli-sci/history major at George Washington University in DC. So fucking random. But in 1989, at the age of 24, Haddaway realized his true calling as a club music god and moved back to Germany, where he previously attended boarding school as a child, to pursue his dreams.

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And in pursuit of his dreams, Haddaway went on to make a handful of albums, his latest having been released in 2005 (Pop Splits). So, um, you should know that when I make a promise, I tend to keep that promise. When I started this column, I promised you that each week, I would listen to an artist's entire discography…and I FUCKING DID listen to everything by Haddaway that I could possibly find on the internet. I'm, like, actually aurally exhausted. What an ambitious task. Above everything else—my God, the cheese!! I mean, I don't even like "What Is Love" beyond the sheer funniness of it, so I went into this sans expectation, but damn. I think the worst part was, whenever I would pause the music to do other things with my life, the last song I listened to would be stuck in my head. At least the catchiness can be accounted for, right?

There's no real point to prove here except that I am now officially familiar with Haddaway's entire body of work, which is something I'm trying to figure out how to brag about. Truth be told, it wasn't the most attentive listening session (because who has the time and the attention span?), but it was enough to catch some recurring themes in his music: love, heartbreak, longing, missing people…shit like that. From what I heard, Haddaway had many a ladies in his time, but not much luck in love. But I read somewhere that he often refers to himself in the third person, so I suspect that could have a big part in that…

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Haddaway is technically not a one-hit wonder in many parts of Europe because his other singles, like "Life," were very well-received. In this one, which hit #2 in Germany, the singer proclaims, "Everybody needs somebody to love." But, but, but…WHAT IS LOVE? (He really set himself up with that question.) In other songs, he sings stuff like "Everybody's gotta, gotta, gotta have love" and "Wanna love, wanna sing." Dude sure sings a lot about love when he's not even sure what it is. Goddamn.

But not all of his songs are Europop fist-pumpers. Once in a while, there would be some sad, slowdance-y tunes, like "I Miss You": "I miss you more than words can say, more than words can ever say." Word on the street is, he never Haddaway with words…hehehehehe. (Thanks to my friend Chelsea for that joke.) I swear, this cheesiness is contagious!

At the end of the day, basically all of Haddaway's songs sounded the same to me. There were more tolerable ones in there like "Gotta Be" ("tolerable" being a very tolerable term), but I can't even find streams for those, so whatever. What can I tell you? Haddaway doesn't stray too far from the theme and song structure of "What Is Love" in his discography, so there are no surprise twists—just a torturous week for yours truly. But hey, record sales in Germany will tell you that there are tons of people who like this kind of stuff. Apparently, he's just laying low in Austria now, probably still reveling in the international success of his hit single, and I haven't heard anything about a new release coming out anytime soon, but who knows? Maybe he'll make a comeback next year for a 20th anniversary sequel called "This Is Love" and tell us what it's all about. 'Cause we're still not sure.

Rest of the discography RIYL: "What Is Love," and I mean genuinely like, and not just casually-listen-for-the-LOLs-like.

@kristenyoonsoo

Previously - Toni Basil