There’s a pretty good chance that you’ll hear Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)” at the next wedding reception you attend. According to an analysis by Givetastic, it’s the most popular wedding song currently on the books.
“We scraped 100,000 Spotify playlists that contained different wedding-related search terms such as: ‘wedding,’ ‘first dance,’ ‘wedding party,’ ‘wedding music,’ ‘just married,’ and more,” Givetastic explained in a blog post. Houston’s infectious dance track appeared on nearly 11,000 playlists, beating all the other songs by a margin of more than 3000. The runner-up was Bruno Mars’s “Marry You.”
Due to the variety of search terms, the list isn’t specific to one part of a wedding—and you can probably intuit when in the proceedings certain songs are played. It’s safe to assume that not very many couples choose The Killers’ “Mr. Brightside” or Usher’s “Yeah!” for their first dance.
Read on for some fun facts about the tracks in the top 10, and find out more takeaways from Givetastic’s survey—including the most popular songs for bachelor and bachelorette parties—here.
1. “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)” // Whitney Houston
Number of wedding-related Spotify playlists it appears on: 10,933
Producer Narada Michael Walden originally thought the demo was “too country and western sounding,” like “a rodeo song with Olivia Newton-John singing.” So he worked to give it a “funkier feel.”
2. “Marry You” // Bruno Mars
Number of wedding-related Spotify playlists it appears on: 7805
In “Marry You,” Bruno Mars and his co-writers wanted to capture the feeling of a spontaneous (and alcohol-fueled) Las Vegas wedding. Idolator asked the musician in 2010 if any of his own “crazy Vegas stories” helped inspire the song. “Yeah, I don’t wanna talk about that,” he laughed.
3. “Yeah!” // Usher feat. Lil Jon and Ludacris
Number of wedding-related Spotify playlists it appears on: 7550
The beat Lil Jon planned to offer to Usher for “Yeah!” can be heard on Petey Pablo’s “Freek-A-Leek.” Jive Records gave it to Pablo, so Lil Jon had to come up with something new.
4. “Shut Up and Dance” // WALK THE MOON
Number of wedding-related Spotify playlists it appears on: 6362
WALK THE MOON’s most famous track is based on a true story. Frontman Nicholas Petricca was at a club in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles when one of his best friends—wearing a backless dress and some beat-up sneaks, no less—“actually told me to shut up and dance with her,” he told American Songwriter.
5. “Perfect” // Ed Sheeran
Number of wedding-related Spotify playlists it appears on: 6358
The lyric “Barefoot on the grass / Listening to our favorite song” reflects a real-life moment that Ed Sheeran shared with now-wife Cherry Seaborn. They were on James Blunt’s lawn listening to “March Madness” by Future.
6. “Thinking Out Loud” // Ed Sheeran
Number of wedding-related Spotify playlists it appears on: 6141
Before Sheeran and co-writer Amy Wadge landed on “I’m thinking out loud,” the titular lyric was “I’m singing out now.”
7. “Crazy In Love” // Beyoncé feat. Jay-Z
Number of wedding-related Spotify playlists it appears on: 6113
Beyoncé came up with the hook for “Crazy In Love” almost by accident. She was rocking a mismatched outfit and messy hair while working on the song with producer/co-writer Rich Harrison, and she kept saying, “I’m looking crazy right now.” Harrison thought it was a great line.
8. “Mr. Brightside” // The Killers
Number of wedding-related Spotify playlists it appears on: 5927
The Killers frontman Brandon Flowers based “Mr. Brightside” on a run-in with his cheating girlfriend. “I was asleep and I knew something was wrong,” he told Q magazine in 2009. “I went to the Crown & Anchor [a Las Vegas pub] and my girlfriend was there with another guy.”
9. “Wannabe” // Spice Girls
Number of wedding-related Spotify playlists it appears on: 5904
Melanie Chisholm (a.k.a. Sporty Spice or Mel C) shed light on the origins of the lyric “zig-a-zig-ah” in a 2017 interview with Billboard. “You know when you’re in a gang and you’re having a laugh and you make up silly words?” she said. “We were having a giggle and we made up this silly word.” In 2015, an anonymous co-writer of the song told The Daily Star that it may have been inspired by a nickname the group coined for a snobby “’80s pop dude” who shared the studio with them: “sh*t and cigars.”
10. “Dancing Queen” // ABBA
Number of wedding-related Spotify playlists it appears on: 5770
The second verse of ABBA’s iconic dance track was originally longer. The missing first half, which you can read below, survives in footage from the recording session.
“Baby, baby, you’re out of sight
Hey, you’re looking all right tonight
When you come to the party
Listen to the guys
They got the look in their eyes”
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