Rahul Sharma (Editor)

I Want You to Need Me

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Format
  
CD single

Length
  
4:34

Genre
  
Pop

Label
  
Columbia, Epic

Released
  
15 July 2000 (2000-07-15)

Recorded
  
1998–1999 Paradise Sounds, Record Plant Studios, The Hit Factory

"I Want You to Need Me" is the last single from Celine Dion's greatest hits album, All the Way... A Decade of Song, released on 15 July 2000.

It was written by Diane Warren, who also wrote Dion's hit "Because You Loved Me" among others. Several club remixes were created by Thunderpuss.

"I Want You to Need Me"'s second music video was directed by Liz Friedlander and released on 1 May 2000. It was included on Dion's All the Way... A Decade of Song & Video DVD. The first video, directed by Paul Hunter in February 2000, was never released. However, a behind-the-scenes video of the first music video was uploaded to YouTube on 8 August 2013.

The song reached number 1 in Canada (for 1 week) and number 7 on the Hot Dance Singles Sales in the United States. It was popular on the Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks, peaking at number 12. "I Want You to Need Me" reached also top 40 in Sweden and Switzerland. The US CD single was released as a double A-side with "That's the Way It Is". According to Nielsen SoundScan it has sold 60,000 copies in the US.

Critical reception

Chuck Taylor reviewed "I Want You to Need Me" and wrote that linking Dion and Diane Warren has always been about "as fine a fit as a trusty pair of Thom McAn's." Between Warren's "heart-drenched" words and dramatic melody writing and Dion's "potent vocals straight from soulside, divadom has never sounded so mighty." According to him, for fans of Dion's "high-caliber" power ballads, this is truly among the best ever and a highlight on All the Way... A Decade of Song. Longing for romantic attention, Dion sings, "I want you to need me, like the air you breathe/I want you to feel me, in everything/I want you to see me, in your every dream/The way that I taste you, feel you, breathe you, need you." Taylor stated that Warren's trusty melody is wholly natural and free-flowing, while production from the usually rock-oriented Matt Serletic is "sheer perfection. It all peaks from the glorious midsection through to the end, where Dion delivers exactly what we've come to expect: a crescendo as "spine-tingling" as those first few times we heard 'My Heart Will Go On.'" Michael Paoletta from Billboard wrote about this song "a consummate love song ripe for a second single". Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic said that "this song isn't bad it just isn't that particularly memorable, especially compared to the hits." Jose F. Promis reviewed the US CD maxi single and gave it 3 out 5 stars. He called the mixes "impassioned, high-NRG Thunderpuss remixes (...) which became something of an underground club hit. That song, in its original form, is a big bombastic ballad (and isn't on this disc), and is precisely the type of grand ballad that lends itself effortlessly to dancefloor transformation. However, the dance mixes can be a bit loud and a bit strident for those not into this sort of thing."

References

I Want You to Need Me Wikipedia