Espen Lind and Amund Bjørklund, from the Norwegian production team Espionage, wrote the chord structure and the guitar part. Beyoncé asked for changes to the song, including the addition of drums, vocal arrangements, and singing in a higher register than the demo. Swizz Beatz, who was working on the album, declared that Beyoncé would be crazy not to include the song on the record. However, "Irreplaceable" did not seem to fit on B'Day, which was supposed to be "a hard-hitting club album". While Beyoncé worked on material for B'Day, she was pleased with the demo of the "Irreplaceable" that was presented to her. Eriksen of Stargate said it was an A&R person who suggested that the song would work better when sung by a woman. However, they thought a female vocalist would be more suitable, and Ne-Yo also thought that it was empowering for a woman to sing it. When the team worked with Ne-Yo, they recorded the song with a male vocalist. But when the drums were incorporated into the music, it was brought to an R&B vibe, and Ne-Yo considered making an R&B-country western music song instead. When Ne-Yo heard them playing the song with a guitar, he thought it sounded like country music. Ne-Yo wrote the song in the country style, thinking of country singers Shania Twain and Faith Hill during the sessions. The tune did not suit Beyoncé's voice, and Ne-Yo wrote the lyrics from a male perspective, although it was not based upon his personal experiences. Production team Stargate and singer-songwriter Ne-Yo had written for Beyoncé's second album B'Day, but Tor Erik Hermansen of Stargate said that they might not have gone in the direction they did on the song. "Irreplaceable" was written for Chrisette Michele. What happens sometimes, is you think about a specific artist and you put them in this box, the song has to be this way or that, and then you're usually confining yourself to the thing they did three years ago. The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) recognized the song as one of the most performed of 2007 at the ASCAP Pop Music Awards.
"Irreplaceable" has regularly featured in Beyoncé's tours and live performances since 2006. It won the Video of the Year award at the 2007 Black Entertainment Television (BET) Awards, and was nominated for the MTV Video Music Award for Video of the Year at the 2007 Awards. The video was included on the 2007 B'Day Anthology Video Album, and a video edit was produced for "Irreemplazable", the Spanish version of the song.
The single's accompanying music video was directed by Anthony Mandler and served as the debut performance of Beyoncé's all-female band, Suga Mama. It also was the most downloaded female ringtone of the 2000s decade in the US. "Irreplaceable" was the most successful song of 2007 in the US and 2007's tenth best-selling digital single with over 4.6 million copies sold worldwide. "Irreplaceable" also peaked at number one in Australia, Hungary, Ireland, and New Zealand, at number four in the United Kingdom, and reached the top twenty in several other European countries. She is the second singer to achieve this feat in the U.S., the first having been Mariah Carey in 2005. It became Beyoncé's second single to achieve 200 million audience impressions in 2006. "Irreplaceable" was the twenty-fifth most successful song of the 2000s (decade) in the U.S., and was certified double-platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Billboard Hot 100 chart for ten consecutive weeks. The single became Beyoncé's fourth number-one in the U.S., was B'Day 's most successful release, and remained at the top of the U.S. It was nominated for the Record of the Year award at the 50th Grammy Awards. "Irreplaceable" won several awards, including Best R&B/Soul Single at the 2007 Soul Train Music Awards. Pitchfork Media and Rolling Stone placed it on their lists of Best Songs of the 2000s. The single was released through Columbia Records.
The song's lyrics are about the breakdown of a relationship with an unfaithful man and the song contains a message about female empowerment.įollowing the moderate chart performances of " Déjà Vu" and " Ring the Alarm", "Irreplaceable" was released internationally on October 13, 2006, as the album's second single, and the third in the United States on December 5, 2006. During the production and recording sessions, Beyoncé and Ne-Yo wanted to create a record which people of either gender could relate to. "Irreplaceable" was originally a country record it was re-arranged as a mid- tempo ballad with pop and R&B influences by modifying the vocal arrangements and instrumentation. Eriksen, Espen Lind, Amund Bjørklund, Beyoncé and produced by Stargate and Beyoncé. The song was written by Shaffer "Ne-Yo" Smith, Tor Erik Hermansen, Mikkel S. " Irreplaceable" is a song by American singer Beyoncé for her second studio album, B'Day (2006).