“Umbrella” by Rihanna featuring Jay-Z

"Umbrella" was the lead single and opening track of Good Girl Gone Bad, Rihanna's third album, and it arrived in March 2007 with a guest turn from Jay-Z, the Barbadian singer's mentor and her boss at Def Jam. He wrote it with the-Dream, and producers Tricky Stewart and Kuk Harrell picked up writing credits too: a crack team building a pop-R&B juggernaut around a chorus you couldn't shake if you tried.

Critics and buyers fell in line. It went to number one in 19 countries, spent seven weeks atop the Hot 100 and held the British top spot for 10 straight weeks, the longest run of the decade, a reign that happened to coincide with a long stretch of rain and flooding. Chris Applebaum's video, with Rihanna covered in silver paint, won Video of the Year at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.