Songs Meant For Other Artists

Imagine saying no to what could have been the biggest hit song of your career.

A common practice in the music industry is for songwriters to pitch a song to several different artists until they find one who wants to record it. The music business is a business after all.

In hindsight, it’s easy to say “How could Britney turn down Umbrella?! How could Kylie turn down Toxic?” However, it’s not always obvious when a song is destined to become massively popular, especially when a song is still going through the various stages of production to become the final version we all hear. Also, no matter how good a song is, sometimes an artist may just not connect with it personally.

There are many famous cases of pop stars who passed on some of the biggest songs in the world. Check below for the Spotify playlist of songs that were written for someone else!

Song	Released By	Rejected By
Toxic	Britney Spears	Kylie Minogue
Come and Get It	Selena Gomez	Rihanna
We Can’t Stop	Miley Cyrus	Rihanna
SOS	Rihanna	Christina Milian
Telephone	Lady Gaga	Britney Spears
Umbrella	Rihanna	Britney Spears
Since You Been Gone	Kelly Clarkson	Hilary Duff
Miss Independent	Kelly Clarkson	Christina Aguilera
Don’t Cha	Pussycat Dolls	Paris Hilton
How Will I Know	Whitney Houston	Janet Jackson
I’m a Slave For You	Britney Spears	Janet Jackson
Pretty Hurts	Beyoncé	Katy Perry, Rihanna
Black Widow	Iggy Azalia	Katy Perry
Let’s Get Loud	Jennifer Lopez	Gloria Estefan
…Baby One More Time	Britney Spears	TLC
Cheap Thrills	Sia	Rihanna
I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing	Aerosmith	Celine Dion
Rock Your Body	Justin Timberlake	Michael Jackson
Shape of You	Ed Sheeran	Rihanna
Physical	Olivia Newtown John	Rod Stewart
Call Me	Blondie	Stevie Knicks

Spotify Playlist

This site is dedicated to fun playlist themes! Have we missed a song that should be included in this playlist? Comment below to let us know — we’ll add it!