Format Digital download Genre Future bass | Recorded 2016 Length 3:19 | |
Released 29 July 2016 (2016-07-29) Label STMPD RCRDS
Epic Amsterdam
Sony Netherlands | ||
"In the Name of Love" is a song recorded by Dutch DJ and record producer Martin Garrix and American singer and songwriter Bebe Rexha. The song's production was handled by Martin Garrix, Matt Rad, Steve James and Simon Says. It was released on iTunes and streaming services after he premiered the song at Ultra Music Festival 2016. A remix EP was released on 11 November 2016, consisting of three remixes featuring DallasK, The Him and Snavs.
Contents
Background and composition
"In the Name of Love" is a future bass song, which contains "a combination of piano, bass, and guitar strums strums [which] provide percussion throughout demure verses."
Garrix and Rexha used FaceTime when she was recording the song as he was not in the studio initially. The two later gathered together to finish it. Martin Garrix debuted the song at the Ultra Music Festival 2016 by playing it on his set in March 2016. He announced the release of the song on 24 July 2016 via his social media accounts and a Tomorrowland 2016 interview. In an interview, he said the 'album is finished' and this song will appear as the first single of his upcoming album which he said he was working on. It is also the first track released since his recent deal with Sony Music which will also be distributed by the latter.
When asked why he chose Bebe Rexha for the collaboration, Garrix said "First of all, I love to hear her voice. I met her earlier this year in LA. She played me some of her demos and just straight away after the first song, I fell in love with her voice because it's so unique it's so different. The team and I were brainstorming and then Bebe ended up doing it, with a lot of sending back and forth, lots of shaping and polishing the song and then we finally came up with the version how the world knows it right now."
Critical reception
Kat Bein of Billboard wrote the song shows Garrix's artistic growth, "[it's] a far cry from the hard-hitting, stomp-ready beat of his breakthrough", and called the song "a charming track, as delicate as it is clean. It's Garrix sharing his softer side." Idolator's Rachel Sonis felt the song sounded "like the summer anthem we’ve been waiting for all along."
Music video
The official music video was released on Apple Music on 9 August 2016 and on YouTube two weeks later. The video opens with Bebe Rexha wearing a red dress by a swimming pool on a springboard outside a mansion, surrounded by rushes of smoke, storm clouds and water explosions just after Martin Garrix comes into the scene by walking towards a springboard standing just few feet away from Rexha. He holds Rexha as they sink beneath the surface of water.