What You Didn’t Know About These Successful Pop Hits

“Rock Your Baby” was not meant for JT

“Rock Your Baby” jumpstart Justin Timberlake’s career as a solo artist in his debut album “Justified”. The album was ranked number 2 recording of the year by “The Face” magazine. Half of the songs in “Justified” were written for Michael Jackson by The Neptunes and modified.

“Rock Your Baby”, one of the best songs on the album was written by Pharrell and The Neptunes. The song was supposed to be in Jackson’s final album “Invincible”.

Rachel Stevens’ “Sweet Dreams My Ex” is about JT

“Sweet Dreams My Ex” was the debut single of Rachel Stevens who was a member of S Club 7. We are not insinuating Stevens had a fling with Justin Timberlake. But the song was originally written for Britney Spears in response to Timberlake’s “Cry Me a River”. Spears turned the song down for its subject matter. The song is Steven’s most successful single to date.

“I Don’t Want to Miss A Thing” wasn’t meant for Aerosmith

Imagine the soundtrack “I Don’t Want to Miss A Thing” to “Armageddon” being sung by Celine Dion instead of Aerosmith.

The film starred Liv Tyler, the daughter of Steven Tyler. Aerosmith was supposed to write a song for the movie soundtrack but due to lack of time and ideas, they went with the song written by Diane Warren for Dion.

“I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” went on to the number 1 spot on the Billboard charts and was nominated for an Oscar.

“I Love Rock and Roll” was a cover

When you hear the classic “I Love Rock and Roll”, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts immediately come to mind. But they aren’ the original singers of the hit. The song is a song by The Arrows.

But nevertheless, Joan Jett went on to make the song famous and brought it all the way to number 1 on the Billboard charts. It was also ranked by Rolling Stone as one of the best five hundred songs of all time. The song was so popular it was also covered by Britney Spears and Miley Cyrus.

“Angel” by Sarah McLachlan has a dark meaning

The haunting beautiful hit “Angel” by Sarah McLachlan was one of her biggest hits. The song peaked at number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 in February 1999 and finished the year as the eighteenth most popular song of all time.

The song’s inspiration came from Jonathan Melvoin, the touring keyboardist of the Smashing Pumpkins who died of heroin addiction. McLachlan was inspired by reading articles in Rolling Stones on how musicians coped with the pressures by turning to heroin and overdosing.

The Canadian singer-songwriter said she has never done heroin as she has plenty of other options as a means of escaping the stress and pressures of a musician.

“Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It” was co-written with Nas

Nasty Nas, better known as Nas, is regarded as one of the greatest influential rappers of all time. He is known for writing serious hip-hop.

But “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It” is fun and rather frivolous. But for the Fresh Prince Will Smith, it brought him success with his “Big Willie Style” album selling over 6 million albums.

Nas has written many well-respected hip-hop music. Despite the popularity of “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It”, he only won a Grammy in 2021 for his 13th studio album “King’s Disease”.

“Nothing Compares 2U” was written by Prince

Sinead O’Conner’s biggest memorable hit is “Nothing Compares 2U”. But the song was originally written by Prince. The song appeared as filler music on the funk band The Family’s only album “The Family”. Prince later recorded the song in 1984 and didn’t get released till 2018.

It was Sinead O’Conner and her producer Nellee Hooper’s rearrangement of the song that made it a hit when it was released in 1990. O’Conner never met Prince after making the song popular. Though she did meet him later, they didn’t get along.

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