When the team worked with Ne-Yo, they recorded the song with a male vocalist. 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. Eriksen of Stargate said it was an A&R person who suggested that the song would work better when sung by a woman. Two labels wanted the song. While Beyoncé worked on material for "B'Day", she was pleased with the demo of the "Irreplaceable" that was presented to her. However, "Irreplaceable" did not seem to fit on "B'Day", which was supposed to be "a hard-hitting club album". Swizz Beatz, who was working on the album, declared that Beyoncé would be crazy not to include the song on the record. Beyoncé asked for changes to the song, including the addition of drums, vocal arrangements, and singing in a higher register than the demo. Espen Lind and Amund Bjørklund, from the Norwegian production team Espionage, wrote the chord structure and the guitar part. In an interview with MTV, Ne-Yo said, "Beyoncé had some stuff that she wanted to get off her chest", while aiming to make a record that women could relate to, in keeping with the theme of the album.