"I Can't Wait" is a song recorded by American group Nu Shooz from the 1986 album Poolside. The song was originally recorded in late 1984 and was featured on the band's second album Tha's Right the following year. Credits on the back of the single indicate that the Poolside LP was originally to be called The Point of No Return. The song was remixed by the Dutch DJ and producer Peter Slaghuis. This remixed version is the one that appears on Poolside. In the United States, the song reached No. 1 on Billboard's Hot Dance Club Play chart in late March 1986, remaining atop the chart for two weeks. Soon afterwards, the song appeared on the Hot 100 chart, where it climbed to No. 3 in mid-June of that year, and remained in the top 40 for 15 weeks and it reached #2 on the R&B/Soul singles chart. In the United Kingdom, the song reached No. 2 on the UK Singles Chart. The single returned to the U.S. charts in 2015, where it peaked at number 17 on the BillboardDance/Electronic Digital Songs chart. The song's American chart run coincided with that of a Stevie Nicks song also titled "I Can't Wait".
Critical reception
's writeup in a Spin magazine column wrote about the single, saying: "You can listen to this record as many times as you want and still not have any strong impressions that human beings actually made it. In other words, it's the perfect disco record."
Music video
The music video was directed by Jim Blashfield. It contains animations and has a hint of the very surreal. The plot has Valerie Day singing the song sitting at a desk, repairing a coffeepot, while tools and other oddities pass into the frame and out again. Her dog sits nearby, wearing sunglasses.
Chart performance
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
In other media
The intro can be heard in the 2007 UK filmSon of Rambow.
Portions of the intro can be heard in a Powerade Zero television commercial that aired in 2010.
Used in the 2010 film The Switch, and was included on the film's soundtrack.
Used in Season 1, Episode 3 of The Cleveland Show, "The One About Friends" when Cleveland goes shoe-shopping.
Heard on one of the promos used for The Big Bang Theory reruns on TBS during the fall of 2011.
Used in the Amazon series Comrade Detective
A cover of the song, sung by Icona Pop and produced by QuestLove was used in a 2015 series of Target commercials.
The song can also be heard in the 2016 film The Infiltrator.
The song was used in the 2010 film Hot Tub Time Machine.
The song can be heard on the 2019 Netflix film The Dirt when Vince Neil of Motley Crue and Razzle, the drummer from Hanoi Rocks are riding in Vince’s Corvette.
The song can be heard on Jamie Oliver's Comfort Food.
The song can be heard in the first season of Scream Queens.
The song has been repeatedly employed on videos uploaded to the Japanese website Niconico, due to the similarity of the song's chorus to the voice of Tohno from the video series Manatsu No Yo No Inmu.
The song was featured in the Transformers 2018 prequel Bumblebee.
Cover versions and samples
A rap cover of the song, "I Can't Wait " by Spyder-D was released later that year.
In 1996, Vanessa Williams used an interpolation of "I Can't Wait" in her hit "Happiness", which is one of the words in the original song.
The song was covered in 2002 by the British female UK garage group Ladies First. It was a UK top 20 hit, reaching number 19.
Brian McKnight's "Jam Knock" used a sample of "I Can't Wait" on his 1997 album, Anytime.
It was sampled by Natalie Alvarado's "I Can't Wait" off her 2005 debut album Natalie.
In 2007, the music was replayed in a remix for Paula DeAnda's single "Easy", featuring a rap appearance by Bow Wow. This song was produced by a production team by the name of The Flyntstones.
The song was sampled by Girl Talk in the song "No Pause" on his 2008 album Feed the Animals. The vocals to "Work It" by Missy Elliott are mixed over it.
Belgian beauty queen Tatiana Silva covered the song in 2008.
The song was mashed up with Snoop Dogg's "Drop It Like It's Hot" by dj BC in a song called "Snoop's Nu Shooz". It was also mashed up with 50 Cent and Mobb Deep's "Have a Party" on the Statik Selektah mixtape The Empire Strikes Back; the track is titled "I Can't Wait ".
The song is also sampled in the 2010 single "Buzzin'" by Mann.
The song was covered by Gavin Castleton for the PDX Pop Now compilation, Let It Rain.
