Singer songwriter Taio Cruz has revealed that both Britney Spears and Mary J Blige turned down his song 'Umbrella' before Rihanna snapped it up and turned it into probably the biggest pop song of 2007. Blige's people, probably rightly, maintain the song wouldn't have been right for her, but Cruz says he has always been a bit confused that Britney's people didn't think it was right for her. Talking to the Daily Telegraph, he claims he always new it was set to be a big hit, explaining: "The audience can be distracted quite easily, so you want something they can sing along with immediately. [It's] so simple, it's like a playground chant. If you look at the most successful songs, they are choruses of four of five words, three notes, repeated. It's not rocket science".
Mar 31, 2008
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1 min read
Umbrella writer on Britney's knock back
Taio Cruz says Britney Spears and Mary J Blige both turned down Umbrella before Rihanna recorded it, and explains why he thinks the song works.