"Don't You Love Me" is a song by
Italian house and
Eurodance
Eurodance (sometimes referred to as Euro-NRG) is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in the late 1980s in Europe. It combines many elements of Hip-hop, rap, techno and Eurodisco. This genre of music is heavily influenced by the use ...
act
49ers. Produced by
Gianfranco Bortolotti
Gianfranco Bortolotti (; born 2 May 1959) is an Italian electronic music producer and manager of Media Records and Media Studio. He was a member of Cappella, and 49ers who had several hits, and Fits of Gloom, who had a UK No. 47 hit with "Heave ...
, it was released in 1990 as the fourth single from their debut album, ''
49ers'' (1990). It features a vocal sample from
Jody Watley
Jody Vanessa Watley (born January 30, 1959) is an American singer, songwriter and producer whose music crosses genres including pop, R&B, jazz, dance and electronic soul.Paoletta, Michael (February 22, 2003) "Watley Relaxes In The Setting of The ...
's 1987 hit "
Don't You Want Me
"Don't You Want Me" is a song by British synth-pop group the Human League (credited on the cover as the Human League 100). It was released on 27 November 1981 as the fourth single from their third studio album, '' Dare'' (1981). The band's be ...
". On the European charts, it reached number 12 in the UK, number ten in Switzerland, number eight in Finland and number six in Ireland. In the US, it was the group's second and last number-one single on the ''
Billboard
A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertis ...
''
Hot Dance Club Play
The Dance Club Songs (also known as National Disco Action, Hot Dance/Disco Club Play, and Hot Dance Club Play) was a chart published weekly between 1976 and 2020 by ''Billboard'' magazine. It used club disc jockeys set lists to determine the mos ...
chart, where it spent two weeks. "Don't You Love Me" was also the group's only entry on the ''Billboard''
Hot 100
The ''Billboard'' Hot 100, also known as simply the Hot 100, is the music industry standard record chart in the United States for songs, published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine. Chart rankings are based on sales (physical and digital), o ...
, peaking at number 78.
Critical reception
Bill Coleman from ''
Billboard
A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertis ...
'' wrote, "Sample-happy Italian outfit follows No. 1, "
Touch Me", with an engaging, though less-inspired
house
A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air c ...
jam, coated with
disco
Disco is a music genre, genre of dance music and a subculture that emerged in the late 1960s from the United States' urban nightclub, nightlife, particularly in African Americans, African-American, Italian-Americans, Italian-American, LGBTQ ...
coloring." In his weekly UK chart commentary,
James Masterton
James Masterton (born 2 September 1973) is a British music critic and columnist, his work focusing on the UK Singles Chart having been an online fixture on various sites since the 1990s. Masterton is also a producer for talkSPORT, and has worke ...
viewed it as "lyrically unique". Paul Lester from ''
Melody Maker
''Melody Maker'' was a British weekly music magazine, one of the world's earliest music weeklies; according to its publisher, IPC Media, the earliest. In January 2001, it was merged into "long-standing rival" (and IPC Media sister publicatio ...
'' said, "The 49'ers are the real deal when it comes to all this Italian disco chatter. It's utterly inhuman, "Don't..." follows the one mandatory all-robotic pulse and android sighs, entirely free of those hideous bids for "authenticity — the grafted-on gruff "soulful" vocals and homely house piano — that made "
Ride on Time" such painful foot-tapping." David Giles from ''
Music Week
''Music Week'' is a trade publication for the UK record industry distributed via a website and a monthly print magazine. It is published by Future.
History
Founded in 1959 as ''Record Retailer'', it relaunched on 18 March 1972 as ''Music We ...
'' felt that the song "should do equally well both on the dancefloor and in the shops. It uses all the tricks of the
Italian house formula in order to produce an urgent good-time track."
Charts
See also
*
List of number-one dance singles of 1990 (U.S.)
References
{{authority control
49ers (group) songs
1990 singles
1990 songs
English-language Italian songs
Songs written by Gianfranco Bortolotti