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This new rendition includes lyrics from the Japanese and German versions of the song. In late 2014, Chenoweth included a multilingual version of the capy casino song in her live album Coming Home. It was also sampled by the producer Pheelz in his song "Popular" which features the artiste Vector for his "#A7" audio – visual album. "Popular" was sampled in "Popular Song" by English singer Mika featuring American singer Ariana Grande (who would later portray Glinda in the 2024 film adaptation) from their albums The Origin of Love (2012) and Yours Truly (2013), respectively. The composition of the song is a more bubblegum sound than the rest of the musical, with Beatles influences. It was originally recorded on November 10, 2003, by American actress Kristin Chenoweth, who portrayed Glinda in the musical.
The show was produced by Touchstone Television and ran for two seasons on The WB from September 29, 1999, to May 18, 2001. Similarly, The Daily Telegraph noted that Grande made the song her own while paying homage to Chenoweth's performance and asserted that the song alone "proves that Grande was born to play Glinda". He also lauded Grande's "comedy chops" for giving Glinda the "outsized vapidity" required for the song and the "stratospheric key-changes" at the end that contributed to its maximalist feel. Daw praised the song as "campy", "hilarious", "technically impressive" due to "Grande's killer voice". For the sequence, costume designer Paul Tazewell created an outfit for Glinda that was a "pink, dotted peignoir with spiraling circles out of ruffles" to reflect the playful and frivolous vibe of the song.
American singer and actress Ariana Grande performed a version of "Popular" for the 2024 film adaptation of the musical, which was released as a single. The DVD versions of select episodes had to change several songs that were used in the original aired episodes to stock music due to licensing fees. American singer and actress Ariana Grande performed a rendition of "Popular" as Glinda in the first part of Universal Pictures' two-part film adaptation of Wicked, which was released on November 22, 2024. The complete series of Popular has been released on DVD in region 1 by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment. Writing for Billboard, Stephen Daw named "Popular" the third-best song of the soundtrack album and expressed that Grande put all concerns to rest about whether her version would live up to Chenoweth's original.
Cinematographer Alice Brooks came up with the idea of "Popular" being one long sunrise as opposed to "Defying Gravity" being a sunset, leading to the addition of a skylight in the dorm's dome ceiling to allow the sun to be the spotlight. Satirical singer Randy Rainbow made a version called "Unpopular", critical of the President of the United States, Donald Trump. Laura Reineke of the blog Vulture ranked "Popular" as the second-best song from Wicked, calling it "bubbly and refreshingly self-aware" and praising it for showcasing Kristin Chenoweth's singing and comedic talent. In "Popular", Glinda attempts to get Elphaba, the future Wicked Witch of the West, to conform to the accepted ideas of beauty and popularity as a means of establishing their newfound friendship.