Ariana Grande is explaining what really happened with that scrapped hip-hop version of “Popular,” which composer Stephen Schwartz had intended to put in Jon M. Chu’s Wicked films before the pop star pushed back on the idea.
In a cover story interview with Variety published Thursday (Jan. 2), Grande recalled first hearing the original rehearsal track for Glinda’s standout number at the very beginning of production in London — and she wasn’t totally thrilled with the instrumentation. “They had hip-hop drums,” she told the publication. “I called Jon first. I was shaking. ‘Is this something that we can meet in the middle on?’”
“And of course, it was so understood,” she continued. “And that’s what happens when you have a team who loves and respects each other and can hear those truths, because nothing has to be withheld.”
The interview comes over a month after Schwartz — who created the soundtrack for the Wicked Broadway musical more than 20 years prior before working on the films — first revealed that the R.E.M. Beauty founder had said no to a hip-hop version of “Popular,” which he’d pitched “in the spirit of being open to new things” for the adaptation. “I thought, ‘Let’s refresh the rhythm. Let’s, maybe, I don’t know, hip-hop it up a little bit,’” he told The Los Angeles Times. “Ariana said, ‘Absolutely not, don’t do it. I want to be Glinda, not Ariana Grande playing Glinda.’”
In the new cover story, Grande clarified that the scrapped version had been less about making “Popular” sound like a song from her own multi-platinum discography and more about modernizing it for the times. Regardless, the “Yes, And?” singer still “wanted to lovingly and respectfully say, ‘Absolutely not!’” to the idea.
“Thinking through the lens of the character — Galinda Upland does not have that bounce to her at all,” she explained to Variety. “She’s as vanilla as they come.”
Though “Popular” never did get the hip-hop treatment, the track did experience some changes. Fans who saw the movie on or after its Nov. 22 premiere, or listened to its No. 2 Billboard 200-charting soundtrack, discovered that the bubbly anthem was extended with an alternate ending — featuring three key changes and an atmospheric opera note hit by Grande for the big finish.
“I had this idea for a new vocal ending,” Schwartz told The Times of the updates in November. “Ariana was a little hesitant about it, but I told her that if I had thought of it for the original show, this is how it would have been. Once she was reassured that this new bit of music was coming out of character, she was on board.”
See Grande with Chu and Wicked co-leading lady Cynthia Erivo on the cover of Variety below.