Pop World’s Most Unexpected Collaborations

Everybody loves a good duet or a collaboration, don’t they? You get two, or more stars for the price of one.

“Girl Is Mine” is one such epic duet that Paul McCartney, and Michael Jackson recorded together and marks its 37th year since its release. As Jackson told it in his autobiography ‘Moonwalk’, when he first met McCartney in the 70’s, Paul told him that he wrote a song for him called “Girlfriend”. McCartney used the song on his 1978 album ‘London Town’ and Jackson included it on his 1979 ‘Off The Wall’ album.

They recorded the song together in April 1982 at Westlake Studios in Los Angeles, which was home base for the Thriller sessions. Around this time, they finished work on “Say Say Say,” shot a video for the song, and recorded another duet called “The Man.” “The Girl Is Mine” ended up on Jackson’s Thriller album, released in November 1982; “Say Say Say” and “The Man” went on McCartney’s album Pipes of Peace, released in October 1983.

While most collabs seem pretty logical – you can usually work out the thought process that brought these two artists together – others are… harder to get your head round.

Here are more of those untypical duo’s you might’ve missed:

Bryan Adams and Jennifer Lopez

Did you see this one coming?! Ahead of the release of his new studio album ‘Shine A Light’, Bryan had teamed up with J-Lo herself on a ballad called, “That’s How Strong Our Love Is”

James Morrison and Nelly Furtado
Heads certainly turned in 2008 when singer-songwriter James enlisted Nelly Furtado to duet on ‘Broken Strings’.

Linkin Park and Stormzy
Metal and grime, historically, have only existed together in factories – until Linkin Park dropped a surprise collaboration ‘Good Goodbye’, which featured Stormzy AND Pusha T. Fans and critics were divided, to say the least.

Coldplay and The Chainsmokers
One of the big surprises at the 2017 BRIT Awards was an unexpected team-up between stadium Gods, Coldplay and dancefloor doyens the Chainsmokers with their collaboration “Something Just Like This”

Zayn and Taylor Swift
When you think of Taylor and a 1D connection, you automatically think Harry Styles, and their relationship that inspired her album, 1989. Bit of a surprise, then, to see Taylor team up with now-solo Zayn, on the Fifty Shades Darker soundtrack.

Blue and Elton John
Blue were huge back in 2002, and when you’re big, what do you really want to be? Bigger! The band covered Elton John’s classic “Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word” but didn’t stop there: they got him to sing on it as well.

Make sure you listen to these collaborations as they truly are some unexpected gems!