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Before his current hit album, Rod Stewart scrapped an all-star duet project: “I sort of prefer my versions”

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Credit: Rankin

Rod Stewart is riding high with his 30th studio album, Blood Red Roses, which has debuted at #1 in his native U.K. But if things had gone as originally planned, the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer would have ended up releasing a completely different album.

In 2015, rapper A$AP Rocky sampled Stewart’s vocals from a song he recorded in 1970 and turned it into a track called “Everyday.” After the success of that song, The Los Angeles Times reports, Rod’s manager and record company decided that it’d be a great idea to put together an album featuring Stewart re-recording his old classics with young collaborators.

According to The L.A. Times, Rod’s 2017 remake of “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy” with the group DNCE was one of the songs for the project. Stewart also recorded songs with James Bay and the British group Bastille.

But the paper reports that the project eventually petered out — one, because Rod had decided to write new songs; and two, because he wasn’t that into it. As he tells the paper, “I sort of prefer my versions.”

Instead, he released Blood Red Roses, his third album of original material since 2013. And while Stewart has rediscovered his love of songwriting in the past few years, he’s careful not to overwhelm fans with too many new tunes during his concerts. 

“You certainly can’t do more than one or two a night,” he says. “But writing is what keeps you fresh — it’s what keeps the adrenaline going.”

The head of Stewart’s record label tells The Los Angeles Times that he’s going to push for Blood Red Roses to get a Grammy nomination, which is one reason it was released on September 28 — two days before the eligibility cutoff date.

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