![]() ![]() Both have industrial-sized music machines working on their behalves. There are a lot of reasons to link Rihanna’s story to Britney’s. “Umbrella”, after all, wasn’t originally intended for Rihanna – it was first offered to Britney Spears, whose label famously turned it down. Things were, of course, about to change, but it’s interesting to imagine what might have happened had history turned out differently. She’d had big hits, like the dancehall-inflected “Pon De Replay” and the “Tainted Love”-sampling “SOS” (the latter of which earned Rihanna her first #1), but a lot of her music was dismissed as by-the-numbers ‘urban’ pop filler, and it was hard to see her breaking through into pop’s top tier. Though she was already two albums into her career, Rihanna still hadn’t quite found her musical identity until “Umbrella” came out. And then there was Rihanna, a Caribbean-diva-in-making who already had the hits, the looks, and the moves, but who lacked that one special song. Beyoncé was going steady, but hadn’t quite crossed over from the more R&B-centric side of pop music into the full-on pop juggernaut she is today. Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, and Kesha were still a year or two from arriving to the party with their fireworks, bad romances, and era-defying anthems, while Britney Spears was in the middle of a highly-publicised breakdown. In March 2007, the world desperately needed a new, female pop hit. ![]()
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