Readers of That Grape Juice know what avid music lovers we are – especially of hits past.
So, as our retrospective features ‘From the Vault’ and ‘TGJ Replay’ allow us the chance to re-spin the gems and jams of yesterday of one artist, our newest feature Chart Rewind – a variation of our current Retro Rewind assay – accedes salutes to an entire era of music history.
This week we tip our hats and raincoats to Rihanna Fenty‘s 2007 megahit ‘Umbrella.’ Originally written for (but later passed on by) pop princess Britney Spears, the tune found a home on Rih’s tertiary release, ‘Good Girl Gone Bad.’ A loss for Spears, but just the right move for Fenty as the Dream-produced cut and its accompanying music video came as a visual and sonic reintroduction of sorts for the Bajan beauty (who up to that point was known for her fairly safe radio offerings).
Calling to mentor/labelhead Jay-Z to assist with the percussion driven pop number, the song was an out-of-the-box success thanks for its catchy guitar riffs and, of course, that signature repetitious “ella ella ey ey.” Going on to be the best-performing single of 2007 (only behind Beyonce‘s ‘Irreplaceable’), ‘Umbrella’ would not only garner Grammys, global critical acclaim, an impressive reign at #1 on the Hot 100 and help its parent album to #1 on the Billboard 200, but most importantly – in the grand scheme – it successfully transitioned the star to the bad gal we know today.
Hop down below the jump to replay ‘Umbrella’ and see if any of your faves from today accompanied Rih on the Hot 100’s upper rankings this week 9 years ago:
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