Heartbreaker (Mariah Carey song)
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| “Heartbreaker” | |||||
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| Single by Mariah Carey featuring Jay-Z from the album Rainbow |
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| Released |  September 21, 1999 October 18, 1999 |
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| Format | CD single, CD maxi single, cassette single, 7" single, 12" single | ||||
| Genre | Dance-pop, R&B, hip hop | ||||
| Length | 4:46 (Album Version) 3:19 (No Rap Version) |
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| Label | Sony | ||||
| Writer(s) | Mariah Carey, Jay-Z, Jeff Cohen, Narada Michael Walden, Shirley Elliston, Lincoln Chase | ||||
| Producer | Mariah Carey, DJ Clue , Mr Fingaz | ||||
| Mariah Carey singles chronology | |||||
| "I Still Believe" (1999) |
"Heartbreaker" (1999) |
"Thank God I Found You" (2000) |
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| Jay-Z singles chronology | |||||
| "Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)" (1998) |
"Heartbreaker" (1999) |
"I Just Wanna Luv U (Give It 2 Me)" (2000) |
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| Rainbow track listing | |||||
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| Greatest Hits (CD #2) track listing | |||||
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| The Remixes (CD #1) track listing | |||||
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| The Remixes (CD #2) track listing | |||||
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"Heartbreaker" is a pop song co-written by American singer Mariah Carey and rapper Jay-Z, and recorded for Carey's sixth studio album Rainbow (1999). Co-produced by DJ Clue and featuring Jay-Z, it is built around a sample of the Stacy Lattisaw song "Attack of the Name Game", written by Jeff Cohen, Narada Michael Walden, Shirley Elliston and Lincoln Chase. ("Attack of the Name Game" samples "The Name Game", written by Elliston and Chase.) The song's protagonist laments a man who has broken her heart. It was released as the first single from Rainbow in August 1999 (see 1999 in music) and reached the top ten in several countries, including the United States, where it reached number one.
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[edit] Composition and release
Carey had originally written the song (along with others on Rainbow) for use in a film and soundtrack project that she was developing titled All That Glitters (later titled Glitter and released in 2001). The film was to be set in the 1980s, and Carey said she and co-producer DJ Clue deliberately made the song "kind of retro, cutesy". The Chicago Sun-Times wrote that the original version of the song had "a bouncy, good-time groove harking back to the roller-disco craze of the early '80s". When production of the film was pushed back, Carey decided to incorporate the material she had written for the film into a new studio album. She enlisted Jay-Z to contribute some rapped parts to the song, and according to her Jay-Z suggested that it be released as a single as soon as possible. Carey said, "I was like: 'They're right. I have to get it out. It's a summer record. I should, I should, I should'".[1]
The release of "Heartbreaker" broke new ground by being one of the first instances where a major recording artist premiered a song on the internet before it was released to radio. "Heartbreaker" could be heard exclusively on the WindowsMedia.com site for twelve hours on August 16, 1999,[2] before the track was officially released to radio the next day. After that, it was available to be accessed on-demand at the Microsoft site until August 20, during which time e-Media reported that 375,000 individually broadcast audio streams were delivered.[citation needed]
[edit] Chart performance
"Heartbreaker" reached number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, earning Carey her first new number-one single since the release of her compilation album #1's (1998). It also made Carey the only artist to have a number-one single in every year of the 1990s, a record that she extended by a further year with "Thank God I Found You" (2000). It spent two weeks at the top of the chart, from October 3 to October 16, 1999; it replaced TLC's "Unpretty" and was replaced by Santana's "Smooth" featuring Rob Thomas. When "Heartbreaker" spent a second week at number one, Carey had spent a total of sixty weeks at number one in the U.S., beating The Beatles by one week (from 1964 to 1970 they had managed fifty-nine weeks).[3]
The success of the single was because of a combination of strong radio airplay and commercial CD single sales: it produced Carey's best showing on the Hot 100 Airplay chart since "Always Be My Baby" (1996) and topped the Hot 100 Single Sales chart with the highest first-week sales of her career (271,000 copies[4]) thanks, in part, to a low 49 cent single price. Carey eventually topped this with "Touch My Body" which sold 286,000 in the first week of its release[5]. It received a gold certification from the RIAA, remained on the Hot 100 for twenty weeks and was ranked thirty-fourth on the Billboard Hot 100 year-end charts for 1999.
"Heartbreaker" was a hit outside the U.S. and topped the charts in Canada, New Zealand, Spain and the Philippines. It peaked inside the top ten in most markets, including Australia and Germany, where it was only one of four top-ten hits for her. It became Carey's last top-five single as a lead artist in the UK until 2003, peaking at number five, and picked up substantial radio airplay across the world, while the videos for it and its remix received heavy rotation.
[edit] Music videos and remixes
The single's video, directed by Brett Ratner, is Carey's most expensive. A 2000 MTV special estimated the video for "Heartbreaker" to be the fifth most expensive of all-time (see List of most expensive music videos); it reportedly costing over US$2.5 million to make, which was less only than Puff Daddy's "Victory", Madonna's Die Another Day, Michael and Janet Jackson's "Scream", and 30 Seconds To Mars' "From Yesterday". In it Carey's friends urge her to confront her unfaithful boyfriend (played by Jerry O'Connell), who is inside a film theater on a date with Carey's alter ego, Bianca.
When the video was released, Jay-Z had recorded the single "Girl's Best Friend" for the soundtrack to the film Blue Streak and was subject to a short-term exclusive deal with Epic Records that stipulated that he could not appear in any other videos. During the part of the song that Jay-Z raps, an animated sequence featuring cartoon versions of Carey and her friends was shown instead. After the contract expired, another version of the video with a new scene featuring Jay-Z, which paid homage to the bathtub sequence in the film Scarface (1983), was released. Other film references in the video include a scene with Carey in a pillowfight taken from Grease (1978), and a catfight in a washroom between Carey and Bianca inspired by Enter the Dragon (1973).
One of Carey's most famous remixes is known simply as "Heartbreaker (Remix)". Although the basic song structure is kept the same, Carey re-recorded her vocals and used a new sample: Snoop Dogg's "Ain't No Fun (It The Homies Can't Have None) which originally samples "Think (About It)" by Lyn Collins". The remix was produced by Carey, Duro, and DJ Clue (who introduces the remix), and it features rapped parts by Da Brat and Missy Elliott. There is a video for the remix, directed by Diane Martel and shot entirely in black and white. It features Carey having a jello catfight with Bianca, skating around in a skimpy bikini and washing the car of Snoop Dogg, who makes a cameo appearance. Missy Elliot, Da Brat, Bianca (Carey's alter ego), Nate Dogg and DJ Clue also make guest appearances.
Carey and Junior Vasquez created dance remixes of "Heartbreaker" that include interpolations of the disco song "If You Should Ever Be Lonely". In early statements related to the film Glitter (2001), Carey had said that there would be yet another remix of "Heartbreaker" on the album. Instead, Carey performed a remix known as "Heartbreaker/Love Hangover" at the VH1 2000 Divas Live tribute to Diana Ross. Never performed elsewhere, this has Carey singing "Heartbreaker" over the background of Ross's "Love Hangover" (1976), along with "Love Hangover" itself and parts of Donna Summer's "Love to Love You Baby" (1975).
[edit] List of remixes
- Heartbreaker [Album Version ft. Jay-Z] 4:46
- Heartbreaker [Pop Version ft. Jay-Z] 4:18
- Heartbreaker [Remix ft. Missy Elliott & Da Brat] 4:32
- Heartbreaker [No Rap Version] 3:22
- Heartbreaker (If You Should Ever Be Lonely) [Junior's Club Dub] 10:12
- Heartbreaker (If You Should Ever Be Lonely) [Junior's Heartbreaker Club Mix] 10:18
- Heartbreaker (If You Should Ever Be Lonely) [Junior's Hard Mix] 10:19
[edit] Charts
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| Preceded by "Unpretty" by TLC |
U.S. Billboard Hot 100 number-one single October 9, 1999- October 16, 1999 |
Succeeded by "Smooth" by Santana featuring Rob Thomas |
| Preceded by "Mambo No. 5" by Lou Bega |
RIANZ (New Zealand) number-one single October 31 - November 7, 1999 |
Succeeded by "Mambo No. 5" by Lou Bega |
| Preceded by "We Can't Be Friends" by Deborah Cox featuring R.L. |
U.S. Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs number-one single October 9, 1999- October 16, 1999 |
Succeeded by "We Can't Be Friends" by Deborah Cox featuring R.L. |
[edit] See also
- Hot 100 number-one hits of 1999 (USA)
- R&B number-one hits of 1999 (USA)
- ARC Weekly Top 40 number-one hits of 1999 (U.S.)
- List of number-one singles in 1999 (NZ)
[edit] Notes
- ^ http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4155/is_19991214/ai_n13835381
- ^ Mariah Carey to Release First Studio Album in Two Years: Rainbow | Business Wire | Find Articles at BNET.com
- ^ Mariah Carey Surpasses the Beatles as the Artist/s With the Most Weeks At No. 1 in the History of the Billboard Hot 100 | Business Wire | Find Articles at BNET.com
- ^ Mariah Carey Hits No. 1 With Her History-Making "Heartbreaker" | Business Wire | Find Articles at BNET.com
- ^ Billboard. Mariah, Madonna Make Billboard Chart History. April 2, 2008. Retrieved April 2, 2008
