REVIEW #1: 40/100

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As far as debut eras go, Rita Ora could be worse off success wise. The singles off of her newly released debut album have all been reasonably successful, demonstrating that Ora at the least is a name people are familiar with. She relentlessly promoted the album in the run up to its release, but even still it was difficult to build expectations. 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. 

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The album opens with one of it’s singles, “Neon”. The song was decently successful, but it sets the tone for the rest of the album by being pretty weak. Production wise, the song owes a lot to the recent works of other artists who have turned to the 80s for inspiration to much better results. The production goes nowhere, keeping the bland verse-chorus-verse style that populates every song on the radio right now. Lyrically, the song is similarly devoid of personality. It’s a very run of the mill attempt at something romantic, missing both heart and commitment. It’s just words that don’t particularly mean much. Why this was selected as the opening track remains to be seen. “Trying” exposes one of the album’s biggest weaknesses in the form of an incredibly drastic stylistic shift. It’s a total 180 from the previous song in terms of sound and the change is both jarring, random, and it makes very little sense. There are many strange style changes across the whole album, but this is one of the most confounding. The production is hazy and poorly constructed, sounding messy and unfinished. The Latin elements and the hard electric guitar don’t make much sense together to boot. Rita’s lyricism is a bit more focused than on the previous track which is a plus, but the song still feels very surface level and rough around the edges. Certain phrases don’t sound right, the wording is often strange, and there is a very noticeable lack of any personality behind them. “New” is another jarring shift in sound, but the production here is at least fairly exciting. It’s energetic and perfectly danable, if a little generic. The lyrics however are just as shallow as the previous two songs. Rita doesn’t demonstrate any intention to do something unique in her lyrics so far and instead opts for the same tired cliches we’ve heard over and over again. There’s no life in the lyrics and certainly nothing that makes it feel like Rita is saying anything that truly matters to her. The song had potential, but ultimately it ends up falling flat. 

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“Safe with Me” is the best track so far by a fairly wide margin. Production wise, this is the first song that is consistent with the song that came before which leaves little room for jarring distraction and allows the song to feel like it’s in the right place. The production isn’t all that unique, but it is focused and tight with some personality to it. Rita’s lyricism is once more shallow, but it’s far more controlled and the song feels like it has an actual flow to it rather than just a collection of random phrases. It’s far from a great song, but it’s a noble effort that stands out as one of the album’s better offerings. “Riverside” offers an interesting go at the production in the sense that it’s melody is one of the most memorable of the album. It’s a real ear worm and this makes up for it’s generic trap indulgence in the beat. Lyrically the song is also pretty solid, though it is not without the occasional awkward and unrefined phrasing that has been present on every song so far. The song features Ariana Grande in a pretty inconsequential role. Her parts of the song feel phoned in with no differentiation from her solo work. Rita’s portions are indeed the strongest here and the song as whole would have benefitted from being solo. That said, it is one of the album’s better (though not outstanding) tracks. “Fantasy” burns a lot of the good will raised by the previous two tracks. The song is yet another jarring shift in sound, moving incredibly far away from the sonic landscape of the two previous songs. There is no rhyme or reason for the sound change, it just happens and the album suffers for it. The song in isolation is both bland and messy. The production is a lazy, Calvin Harris esque beat that sounds like it belongs in 2015, not 2021. The lyrics are similarly mirky, being incredibly repetitive and somewhat nonsensical as many of the ideas presented are not seen through leaving thoughts unfinished. The song ends abruptly as well barely two and half minutes after it began, leaving behind only bewilderment. It is undoubtedly one of the album’s weakest tracks. 

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“Decision” is another jarring sonic change, this time swinging back more into the style of tracks 3-5. That said, it’s still frustratingly bland and decidedly outdated. The song is brand new but sounds old, using sounds and beats of years ago. With how much innovation has been demonstrated by artists in the last couple of years (Lorde’s Scarlet and Frank Ocean’s ...Life is Beautiful, two of the most acclaimed albums of all time, being the obvious forebearers of this experimental innovation) this song feels pedestrian and anonymous. It does not feel as if there was any intention behind it other than radio airplay and that feels hollow. Rita’s lyrics are surface level, not digging into anything meaningful or unique. She lacks a voice in her writing, it feels as if anyone could’ve put these words on the paper and it’d have the same effect. It’s a disappointing listen that leaves with little satisfaction. “Better Now”, one of the album’s singles, is certainly better than the song before it but it wasn’t a hard bar to jump. The production is once more horribly outdated, sounding pulled straight from 2014. Why exactly the decision was made to go for this sound is a mystery, but it doesn’t work. The lyrics are the song’s better aspect, once more seeing Rita be a bit more focused and making a real attempt at making things collide into something meaningful, but things still frustratingly distant. She isn’t go beyond the shallow water, she isn’t digging into anywhere other than the generic minimum. The words aren’t bad, they just feel empty. Still, it’s danceable and has a memorable sonic hook to keep it from sinking to the depths of the album’s worst tracks. 

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“Believe” features some of the strongest production on the album, being genuinely well put together sonically. It’s focused and intentional, and it most importantly carries some personality. It’s a shame then that Rita’s lyrics let it down as much as they do. Between some genuinely poor word choice (“Joined by a joyful dog running along the shore” is one of, if not the worst lyric on the album) and a once more total lack of true depth in the lyrics, the song is frustratingly sterile lyrically. There is nothing in these words that makes them feel authentic. It isn’t believable that these words are coming from experience because she doesn’t allow us to see any of her in her words. It’s tiresome, especially when the production is this solid. Without this production, this song would be among the worst but those sonics keep it afloat enough to survive. “Wake Up” is an attempt at something affecting and personal but it once more falls flat. The production is once again outdated and the lyrics that supplement it sound like first drafts. Phrases are unfinished, the song has no logical flow to it, the same ideas are repeated over and over, and it leaves the song being nothing but confusing. The sonics don’t match up with the tone of the lyrics (what we can gleam of them), leaving it feeling disjointed. It’s one of the album’s worst tracks to be sure. “Heavy” is no better. Production wise the song is all over the place. It begins as a straightforward ballad before going all sorts of weird directions until a beat comes in. It’s a Frankenstein of sounds all mashed together that makes little sense. But the lyrics once more sink the ship. It’s an attempt at something profound, but it comes across as manufactured and false. The lyrics are cliche ridden, feature some really strange phrasing, and nothing ever really rises to make a point. The song’s intention isn’t clear. What Rita wants this song to mean seems to be only known to her as this is just a collection of ideas that don’t mean much of anything. 

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“Love Again” switches things up tonally, beginning as another song about a bad headspace before heel turning in the middle to turn into a love song. It isn’t a bad idea, and it’s executed surprisingly well. The production is thankfully simple and doesn’t feature the wild shifts in tone that the previous track did. It’s still a generic piano ballad, but there is life behind the eyes and the song works better than one might expect. It’s one of the album’s best tracks, if not it’s best. This is contrasted by the album’s closer, which is the worst track on the album without question. The production is incredibly bland and devoid of personality. It’s clearly meant to rouse the listener and be triumphant but it doesn’t do the trick. It leans into every cliche possible and doesn’t do it nearly as well as other songs do. The lyrics are the weakest Rita has presented for the album. It’s full of phrases that don’t sound at all like they were looked at beyond the first draft. It’s riddled with eye rolling moments of cheesiness and it, like it’s production, leans into far too many cliches to hold any sort of uniqueness. It feels entirely anonymous again, like anyone could sing this and it’d come across the same. It’s a weak end to the album and achieves nothing that Rita seemed to have wanted to achieve with it. 

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Heartbreaker is not a strong starting point for Rita Ora’s career. Although there are some occasional high points, the album is not saved by their presence. There is no focus to the album whatsoever. The music is all over the place with many tracks sounding so different from each other that they sound pulled from totally different albums. It’s not cohesive in any way, which could be forgiven if the disconnected styles were done well but they rarely are. Rita’s writing never extends beyond the surface, never digging to find something new or interesting to say, but most importantly never finding something unique to say. There is no song on this album that sounds as if it belongs completely to Rita. Any artist could have come to sing these words of these beats and it’d land the same way. Her phrasing is rough and often makes little sense, the songs just meander along with nowhere to end up, and many ideas are not seen through once they’re introduced. The album sounds very outdated and shallow which makes it stand out for the wrong reasons. 2020 saw the release of some of the most innovative and forward thinking albums of all time, but there is no hint of that here. The album’s highs are not nearly high enough and it’s lows are some of the lowest of recent memory. One hopes that Rita will hear these issues and work at making something better for the next go around. She certainly has potential and she seems capable of making something special. Heartbreaker, unfortunately, is not that album. 

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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.

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REVIEW #2: 50/100

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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?

 

The album opens with it’s lead single, “Neon”. Honestly, there’s not a whole lot to say about this one. It’s a fun, carefree track that is a perfect fit for radio. The production on the track is the highlight, which feels engaging if a little repetitive. Lyrically, the song doesn’t meet that same mark with a few odd choices (“Wow, you looked so damn good; I thought I didn’t understood” being a notable stand out as even my text editor attempts to fix that error) and is rather simplistic and repetitive in itself, although it’s masked by the groovy production and the energy brought by Rita which allows it to pass by fairly well. “Trying” comes in and immediately causes you to question whether the album is on shuffle or not. The sound change is rather drastic! Lyrically, the song has similar issues to “Neon” with some interesting phrasing, but unfortunately the somewhat bland latin production does little to smooth it over like in the previous track.

 

“Somebody New” is another sudden sound switch, much more in tune with something like the opening track rather than the previous one. Similarly to the opening, the production is the obvious highlight here although it still fails to live up to the level set by “Neon”. Lyrically, the track feels very disconnected, almost lifeless. A song doesn’t need overly complex lyrics to succeed, but it needs substantial ideas within it which feel missing with this particular track. There’s no progression, story or setting to any of the ideas, rather just being portrayed as vague feelings with little weight to them. Perhaps this could work if these feelings were portrayed in a unique way, but instead we see them in empty phrases with little to make them stand out. Almost instantly, Rita takes a turn for the better with “Safe With Me”, an instant highlight on the album. The production meets in a place that combines some of the elements from previous songs naturally, in what could be considered the most interesting instrumentation thus far. Conversely to previous tracks however, the lyrics on this track become much more prominent and clear. The first verse alone is better than anything we’ve seen so far, and that momentum holds for the majority of the track. It’s not flawless, and there are ideas here that could definitely be explored further, but it’s clear that this is a track with much more direction in it and the result is one of the best tracks thus far.

 

It seems almost every album from the past year or so has seen an Ariana Grande feature within it, and Heartbreaker is no different. Once again, it continues the momentum from the previous track and continues the upward trend in Rita’s lyricism. There’s nothing overly complex, but there’s no need for it with the top notch storytelling on display. For the first time, Rita paints a stunning picture with her words that merges seamlessly with the track’s production. Yet again, there’s a clear narrative in this song that is weighed down with personality rather than just empty emotions. The production itself is rather simplistic, although it allows a mellow mood to be created which ultimately benefits the track heavily. Grande herself also fits well into the track, and the two create what is currently the absolute highlight of the album. This is followed by “Fantasy” which, unfortunately, falls to the same issues in some of the earlier tracks that were beginning to be fixed. It’s yet another hollow track lyrically, with very little to grasp onto and little for Rita to pour any real emotion into. The production itself is a massive 180 from the mellow nature of “Riverside”, and has little to make it stand out. So far, the whiplash between tracks in terms of their sound has been very prominent as Rita mixes many different styles, although one would not be blamed for hoping she would find a base sound and build from that rather than merging many different genre tracks all into one album.

 

“Decision” follows, which feels like a natural transition from “Fantasy” in many ways. The track in itself is neither a complete miss nor a complete success, rather falling somewhere in the middle. The production is fairly strong, with an interesting guitar used throughout and is rather engaging. The lyrics for the most part are passable, not reaching the album’s highlights but not any worse than some of the missteps we’ve seen before. It’s uneventful, but it’s a perfectly fine album track that has elements of some of the highlights from the project so far. “Better Now”, the highest peaking single from the album thus far, can’t claim the same. Lyrically, the song isn’t terrible but the production is one of the weaker moments, feeling very manufactured and outdated. There’s little personality to it, and feels like a factory crafted radio track. To say it’s badly crafted would be a lie, but it’s difficult to get an authentic feeling from it nonetheless.

 

“Believe” is the first real ballad track, which is an interesting turn for Rita. There is a simple yet elegant production that works well, although it relies heavily on the track's lyrics when in reality, there is little to lean on. With such emotional instrumentation, the lyrics ironically begin to feel more emotionless than ever. The verses attempt to set up some sort of emotional attachment, although it isn't executed particularly well, and the rest of the track has vague feelings of belief and love that don’t feel tied to any real emotional attachment. While I’m sure there is authenticity in Rita’s lyrics, there’s little that connects them to her which causes them to feel empty. Production wise, “Wake Up” is another tonal shift but one that doesn’t feel as contrasting as before. Instead, it provides us with yet another engaging instrumental. Lyrically, the song feels a little more connected and has a strong base of emotions to work off. The problem here lies in the fact that, at times, the lyrics themselves feel unfinished. There’s a lack of polish to them that drags the song down, but there’s a promising base here.

 

“Heavy” returns as yet another emotional ballad for Rita, with what may be her strongest lyricism yet. More than in any previous track, there is clear emotion in the words she sings which feel like a true outpouring of her feelings. This feels like a Rita Ora track, and feels authentically like her. The ideas of the song aren’t always clear and feel mixed, so it would be interesting to see her write from a more consistent viewpoint, but she delivers it powerfully nonetheless. The production has a strong build up throughout it and reaches a satisfying conclusion, although it feels as though it’s taken a strange road to finally get there. “Love Again” feels mixed in a similar way, at times making it difficult to dissect what Rita is really singing about. There’s a definite conflict of emotions in the song, going from “keeping strong” to “being done with everything” just two lines later. Combine this with a passable, yet somewhat bland piano accompaniment, and the track lands itself on the weaker half of the record. “Grateful”, the closer, comes in to wrap the album up and does so to another mixed degree of success. There’s a clear message within it, a clear direction that comes naturally from the previous track. It’s not a terrible closer, although it does feel a little cliche and empty. Not to say there’s not emotion in the track, there is and it’s clear Rita feels connected and empowered by it. The issue is, it’s difficult for us as the listeners to see why as there is little connection made between her and the song. Still, the writing is solid for the most part and the instrumental is definitely a highlight of the album, providing a dramatic conclusion to the album as a whole.

 

Overall, Rita Ora’s debut album has seen massive commercial success and has become one of the biggest debut era for a female artist ever. Critically however, the album doesn’t meet that same standard. The album has a few missteps, but the major consistent issue lies in Rita’s lack of connection established within the songs themselves. There’s potential within them, but the lyrics themselves feel empty and disconnected. Of course, the album has it’s highlights in stand out tracks such as Riverside and Heavy, although there are few of these. Nonetheless, Rita is clearly just beginning to find her footing in the industry and she holds potential to really grow and produce amazing work as she continues. 

 

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.

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