Ariana Grande Rejected A Hip-Hop Version Of “Popular”

Ariana Grande’s rendition of “Popular” in the Wicked movie was perfection, worthy of any Broadway performance. But apparently, the song almost had a very different sound. Stephen Schwartz, the composer and lyricist of Wicked, floated the idea of making a hip-hop version of “Popular” for the film before Grande rejected it.

“In the spirit of being open to new things for the movie, my music team and I thought, let’s refresh the rhythm,” Schwartz told the Los Angeles Times in November. “Let’s, maybe, I don’t know, hip-hop it up a little bit.”

Grande nixed the idea. Schwartz recalled, “Ariana said, ‘Absolutely not, don’t do it. I want to be Glinda, not Ariana Grande playing Glinda.’”

The end result was pretty close to the original stage musical version, but with an extended ending and some key changes. According to Schwartz, Grande also initially resisted these updates. “Ariana really wanted to be true to the original song,” Schwartz told Buzzfeed UK. “But when I came in with this new ending, she was at first hesitant because she thought, ‘You’re just doing this because I’m Ariana Grande.’ I said, ‘If I thought of this then, I would have done it.’”

Schwartz added that the film’s version of “Popular” might actually make its way to the stage production. “One thing I would definitely have done — and who knows, maybe after this we’ll put it into the stage musical — is the new end of ‘Popular,’” Schwartz told Buzzfeed UK when asked if there were any elements of the original show he’d redo. “So that’s the one. That’s the one I think might find its way back into the stage musical.”

Schwartz continued, “Using her soprano there and everything… we just didn’t think of it when we were doing the show.”

Despite the changes, the new “Popular” still sounds true to Glinda as a character. “[Grande] does little inventive things within it, but I think they are strongly character-based,” Schwartz told Time about the track. “That was something she was very insistent on.”