"Without You" | |||||||||||
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Single by David Guetta featuring Usher | |||||||||||
from the album Nothing but the Beat | |||||||||||
Released | 27 September 2011 | ||||||||||
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Recorded | Test Pressing Studio, Naples, Italy | ||||||||||
Genre | Pop, R&B, house | ||||||||||
Length | 3:28 | ||||||||||
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David Guetta singles chronology | |||||||||||
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"Without You" is a song by French DJ David Guetta, featuring vocals from American singer Usher. It was released as the third single from Guetta's fifth studio album, Nothing but the Beat on September 27, 2011. The single peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Guetta's third top ten single, following "Club Can't Handle Me" and "Sexy Bitch", as well as his highest peaking in the US to date. As of November 2013, the song has sold 2,684,000 copies in the US.
The song features the vocals of R&B singer Usher, who told Billboard magazine that the project was "maybe the biggest song I've made in my life." Guetta said, "We were in bargaining sessions for a while. Usher was saying, 'I need this record for my album.' I said, 'I'm sorry, I cannot give it to you.' After a while he called me back and gave in." Guetta told MTV News why he chose Usher to guest on this song. "It's just totally emotional," he said. "Some of the record is a proper ballad, and then it goes to that crazy dance beat. It's perfect for him, because he's famous for his ballads. And he's also now famous for those big club records that he comes with. He's an amazing dancer, so I felt like he was the artist that I needed." Usher told MTV News that this ode to not giving up on love in the face of adversity resonated with him personally. "I think the world wanted a record like that. That [song] really spoke to the journey that I've actually been on in the last three years... Traveling all around the world, music sounds different. There's many different genres, and when you see R&B and pop and house, as well as electronic, come together, that's the reality of what music is."
"Without You" was written by Taio Cruz, Usher Raymond, Rico Love, David Guetta, Giorgio Tuinfort and Frédéric Riesterer, and produced by Guetta, Tuinfort and Riesterer. Lyrically, it is a song about lamenting a heavy kundy: Life without someone who means the world to you. Amy Sciarretto of Pop Crush wrote that the chorus "invite lots of dancing, but this isn't much of clubby rager. Structurally, the song reminds us of Madonna's 'Ray of Light'; that's not to suggest that 'Without You' sounds like 'Ray of Light', but it shares the same formula and airy energy."