Heartbreaker (Rita Ora Album)

### Producer

Alesso • Andrew Watt • Frank Dukes • David Guetta • Max Martin • Tiësto • Stargate • Louis Bell • Martin Johnson • Rita Ora • Ollie Green & The Arcade

## Singles

### 3.

Riverside (feat. Ariana Grande)Released: November 12, 2021

### 5.

*Unknown*

**Heartbreaker** is the debut studio album by British singer-songwriter Rita Ora, released on July 2nd 2021 under Physical Records. Following a series of her acting roles (2015 - 2018) in the Fifty Shades film series and her hosting gig on America's Next Top Model, Ora took a break from the spotlight before announcing in 2020 that she returned to the spotlight by pursuing a music career. She signed her record deal in October of 2020 but announced it in December of the same year. She started working in October 2020 on what would eventually become her debut studio album.

The album is a personal piece of work, explaining how Ora dealt with heartbreak for the last couple of years. Diving into topics regarding mental health and anxiety and her own experience with heartbreak. The sounds on the album are mainly focus on Pop with sub-genres of the genre. Ora wants the listener to go through her experience of heartbreak and experience that with each and every song on the album.

The album was supported by multiple top 10 singles, the No. 3 hit single **Better Now** and the No. 5 single **Neon** and No. 6 single **Riverside** featuring Ariana Grande. Critics had a lot to say on Ora's debut album, even though she had a succesful run single-wise, the album wasn't praised with a lot love. Even though the album wasn't high on Metacritic, the album was still the thirteenth most streamed album of 2021 and the eight most streamed album of the 15th season with over 600,000,000 streams.

Commercially, the album was a huge success. The album debuted with 600,000 copies sold in it's openings week which was an amazing milestone for Ora. The album debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 200 and managed to stay in the Top 10 for weeks and later even re-peaking at No. 2 on the chart, the album has been certified 9x platinum as of September 2022 for selling over 9,000,000 copies.

## Background and recording

When Rita Ora first signed her record deal in October 2020 with Physical Records she immediately started working on the album. During the recording time, she met with a lot of producers and writers and got to know a lot people in the industry which helped her a lot during the making of her album.

She recorded the album through October 2020 - March 2021 and released one single in between, the lead single Neon. After the recording was finalized, production came into place and the album was created. Three months after the recording for the album finalized, the album was released worldwide.

## Music and lyrics

### General

The standard edition has a total of 13 tracks. The album mostly focuses on a pop sound with sub-genres such as dark-pop, power-pop and lation-pop), R&B and electro.

Lyrically, the album is about the highs and lows of dealing with heartbreak and how a toxic relationship can influence your life years after. Tackling topics such as heartbreak, love, cheating, letting go, anxiety, mental health, self-reflection and relationships with family and friends. Ora revealed that "writing this album was a hard process for me, the topics mentioned on my album are really personal and it brought up a lot of emotions for me while we were in the studio. But, I also believe that while I made this album it made me stronger and it got me thinking that everything happens for a reason, this needed to happen to me to get where I am right now in my life".

### Songs

This part of the Wikipedia page has been taken from the booklet from the record. Therefore, you will be reading it from Ora's perspective.

The record opens with the lead single, **Neon**, a simple pop influenced song about falling in love for someone you just met, kind of like love at first sight. Reflecting on Ora's first meet with her ex and instantly feeling something for that person. **Trying**, the second track on the album and more lation-pop influenced; sometimes you want to try so badly to let the other know that you are meant to be together and that you will always keep trying to show that to your lover.

**Somebody New** goes more into the EDM genre. Lyrically, the song talks about that feeling of discovering you have been lied to? Realizing you were lied to and realizing you’re unhappy, someone told you that he or she loves you and would do anything for you and in one split second that entire feeling is gone like it never existed, realizing it’s over isn’t the hard thing, but once it’s hitting you and time to get over it, that is when it’s getting hard. **Safe With Me** goes more into the most dark production of the album. Sometimes you can be stabbed in the back so hard, even by your loved one because of secrets he had or something like that, you feel like you know everything about your lover, but be careful, you might not know everything. Even though you figured out all his secrets, you are still trying to make it work and you want to build the relationship back and better than ever. **Riverside** is the only collaboration on the song and features Ariana Grande. The song is about realizing that you love someone but the person doesn’t love you back anymore, looking back at the times you were in love and had the good times.

**Fantasy**, the next track on the album and also one of my favorites. Sometimes you can get things in your head that aren't there, creating a whole fantasy and picture in your head but in reality it was never going to happen that way, creating a fantasy of someone that loves you. **Decision,** in a way you can sense right away if someone is bad for you but at that time and in the first phase, you don’t really care about that. But, after a while you are realizing the person isn’t good for you and that you fell right into his games. You made some bad decisions while in the relationship and every decision you made is hitting you hard right now. **Better Now,** the record's biggest single, it dives into this amazing summer vibe type of production. You know that feeling that you are better off without your lover? Well yeah, welcome to the song. Even though deep down you still want to see that person, you know it’s better not to do it since you will be better off without that person and you are so much better now. After Better Now, the record goes a little deeper into some heavier topics. **Believe** is the first one to do so, once you go through a breakup you can’t help but to look back at the good times you had with your past lover, but you are also realizing that you believed your ex was different and would never do this, you knew you loved him/her more and that is okay. Same goes for **Wake Up,** I have dealt and still I'm dealing with a lot of insecurities, mental health issues and anxiety all because of my past. I remember when I sat down for a writing session and I just wrote down every word that came up in my mind. I remember that I needed to wake up and get to know myself. This song tells that story, in this case my personal story with anxiety, sleepless nights, insecurity and so much more.

**Heavy** is next up, life can be so difficult sometimes, for some people more than others obviously, we all have our own problems to solve in life. The song itself talks about that, it talks about how difficult life can be, how heavy the world gets and how your past influenced you and made you the person you are today. The experiences you went through made you stronger. **Love Again** is a song that begins very deep and has an emotional but also happy twist to it. This song is about realizing you can have love again in your life, that you will find someone that makes you happy and that is exactly what you have found again and you are enjoying every second of it. You have opened your heart to someone after you haven’t done that in a very long time. Definitely one of the hardest songs I have written for the album. **Gratefu**l is closing track of the record and has a sentimental meaning behind it. The title says it all, after everything you went through and experienced, you are extremely grateful for the experience, you are grateful for the heartbreak, endless tears, challenges you faced, bad times in your life and so much more. Seeing the bad moments as a learning part and a good part of my life, which is hard to do because when someone is living those bad times it is common to get no other but bad feelings. It is brave and powerful to be grateful about the bad times of life and you should

## Release and promotion

In regards of it's opening week, fans were excited to see how Ora would promote the album. Due to it being Ora's debut album and due to the fact the label she is signed to, Physical Records, is a fresh new record label.

The album was heavily promoted in which Ora played a big part, she even got recognized as Rising Star at the 2022 Billboard Women in Music event. The music video for the second single, Better Now, was released on the same day of the album. Ora took over CALTube, Encore and iTunes with banners appearing on the homepage of the streaming services for the entire week. Further promotion consisted out of constant radio and television appearances.

Ora appeared on the Zach Sang Show for her "Heartbreaker interview" and talked all about the process of making the album and how it came to be. She appeared on Saturday Night Live and performed Better Now and album track Wake Up. In the week of the album release, the Sony Music of Excellence Awards were being hosted where Ora performed her single Better Now. After that, Ora went worldwide to promote the album, visiting the United States, Europe and Australia to promote her album. She had the magazine cover for the July issue of Rolling Stone. She appeared on multiple radio, television and talent shows including The Voice Australia, The Ellen Show, Graham Norton, Kelly Clarkson Show, GENIUS Verified, KISS FM UK and Le Grand Journal where she talked about the album and performed either the single or one of the album tracks.

A variety of artists congratulated Ora on the release of her debut album. Sabrina Carpenter tweeted out a tweet with Ora backstage of at the Sony Music of Excellence Awards and congratulated Ora on her first album and said she was so proud of her.

## Critical reception

*Heartbreaker* received mixed to average reviews from critics, scoring 45/100 on Metacritic.

Even thought she promoted the album a lot until it was released, that also meant that the fans and general public had a lot of expecations from the album. "With a debut, you never know what you’re going to get. It can either be something incredibly polished, purposeful, and confident...or it can be visionless, shapeless, and devoid of anything unique. Many of the listeners who found themselves enjoying the singles no doubt primed themselves for the first option. But unfortunately, Rita ended up delivering the second option [...], Everyone must start somewhere though and at the least, there’s all the room in the world for Rita to learn and grow. And we hope she does."

Different review wrote "Rita Ora has become, without a doubt, one of the biggest breakout successes of 2021 thus far. Since the release of her debut single, “Neon”, she has achieved a further two consecutive top ten hits, including the #3 peaking “Better Now”, and has solidified herself as an artist to watch with her debut studio album, Heartbreaker. Stated to be a reflection of Ora’s experience over the past few years, there was much anticipation leading up to the album’s release. Did it live up to expectations? [...], Heartbreaker itself, while not being the critical smash Rita may have been aiming for, is a platform for her to grow from in the future. Many people will be keeping their eye out for what Rita comes out with next, and see how she develops from this point forward."

Ora took critics took hard and saw it as positive feedback for the future. "I mean, we all learn and grow from the things we do. The only thing I can do right now is take a good look at the reviews and take it with me for the next album. I have read them all and I get where they are coming from, looking back at it I could have done a better job but I am happy about how the album was made and how it came together. I do not regret anything, but remember something; the second album is going to be way better than this one, I can assure you that."

## Commercial performance

*Heartbreaker* debuted and peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 200 with 624,000 sales in it's opening week, a solid debut for Ora. The album later eventually re-peaked at No. 2 on the chart. The album has been certified 9x platinum for selling over 9,000,000 copies worldwide as of September 2022 and is expected to reach Diamond status any time soon.

The album spawned three official singles. The first of three, Neon, became Ora's first official Top 10 single and later even Top 5 single when it reached its peak of No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100. Having sold over 1,800,000 copies worldwide, the single was recognized with a platinum certification. Better Now, the second single from the album is being recognized as Ora's breakthrough hit single. The single debuted within the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 entering at No. 7, marking Ora's second Top 10 single at the time and later even her first Top 3 single as it reached a peak of No. 3 on the chart. The single has so far sold 7,400,000 copies worlwide and for that the single was recognized with a 7x platinum certification. Riverside featuring Ariana Grande was released as the third and final single of the album and debuted at first at No. 23 on the chart with the album's release, after it was being released as a single it re-entered the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 9 and peaking at No. 6, marking it's Ora's third Top 10 single of her career. The single sold over 6,800,000 copies worldwide and was recognized with a 6x platinum certification for doing so.

The album spawned one promotional single titled Grateful. The promotional single debuted at No. 42 on the Billboard Hot 100 and eventually peaked at No. 7, marking Ora's fourth Top 10 single. The promotional single went on to sell over 2,100,000 copies worlwide and was recognized with a 2x platinum certification.