“Party in the U.S.A.” was co-written by English singer-songwriter Jessie J; she originally intended to sing it (listen to the leaked snippet of the demo version), but decided to pass the song over to Miley after concluding that it didn’t fit her persona:

That was my first week of writing after I signed to (Universal) Republic (Records), so it was like the first big kind of writing session for my debut album … and it was one of the first songs we did. And I remember thinking this song is amazing, but I don’t know if it’s me 110 percent, you know. You can kind of feel it. It was cool but it wasn’t edgy enough.