It’s been more than three years since Rihanna dropped her seventh album, Unapologetic, and recently the bad gal has started feeding us clues about her next project, Anti—from the #R8 hashtag to tweets from the studio. A new release seems imminent.
With music’s greatest songwriters at her disposal, Rihanna has the opportunity to play Goldilocks with her LPs, hand-picking songs that are just right. But sometimes, those rejected tracks go on to become smashes for her peers.
Below is a roundup of some of the biggest hits initially intended for Rih. Can you imagine what these songs might have sounded like if she hadn’t passed on them?
“Pretty Hurts,” the first track off of Beyoncé’s 2013 album, was another Sia masterpiece. In an interview with The New York Times, the Australian songwriter said she initially sent the track to Katy Perry who didn’t see the e-mail. She then passed it along to Rihanna’s manager who “held it for eight months but ultimately did not pay the fee to secure the track.” While the slow-burning body-postive anthem was the perfect album opener for Bey, Rihanna probably could have given the song an equally moving delivery a la “Stay.”
As Drake opens this Thank Me Later single with the lines “I’m more than just an option / Refuse to be forgotten,” it’s clear that “Find Your Love” is a fitting track for a rapper known for wearing his heart on his sleeve. It is surprising then that the Yeezy-penned song, was initially intended for Rihanna’s 2009 album, Rated R. Judging by the success of their collaboration on “FourFiveSeconds,” it’s likely that Rihanna and Kanye would have delivered a smash if she had decided to keep the song for herself.
Swedish producer and songwriter Max Martin knows how to make a song go pop. From Justin Bieber to Taylor Swift, Martin has worked with almost every star in the industry. Except for Rih, that is. “DJ Got Us Fallin’ in Love,” a Martin original, was just one of 200 songs that didn’t make the final cut for Rihanna’s Loud. The song eventually went to Usher, who turned it into a club anthem with the help of Pitbull and David Guetta. Similar in style and tempo to “Only Girl (In the World),”, it’s surprising that Rih didn’t go for this one.
One of summer 2015’s hottest songs, Major Lazer’s “Lean On” spent 10 weeks at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100. While the track features vocals from Danish singer-songwriter MØ, Diplo initially approached both Rihanna and Nicki Minaj about singing on it instead. Diplo claims their disinterest was a “blessing in disguise,” but still, it’d be interesting to hear how Rihanna would’ve approached this EDM earworm.
It’s difficult to imagine anyone other than Miley Cyrus singing about “dancing with Molly,” but the master-twerker’s hip-hop-influenced rebirth was actually written for Rihanna. Real-life brothers and hit songwriting duo Rock City talked about the song’s origins: “That was initially an idea for Rihanna. There are Caribbean references in there. If you listen close enough you’ll hear the Caribbean elements. It ended up working out though. It was great for Miley.”
