Beat of My Heart

"Beat of My Heart" is a song recorded by American pop singer Hilary Duff. It was written by Duff, along with Dead Executives, who also produced it for Duff's first compilation album Most Wanted (2005). It was released as the album's second single in late 2005 (see 2005 in music).

Reception

In the United States, in contrast to "Wake Up", the first single from Most Wanted, "Beat of My Heart" failed to chart on the Billboard Hot 100 or the Pop 100.^[1] It reached number thirteen in Australia, peaking higher than "Wake Up", and it stayed on the chart for fourteen weeks.^[2] "Fly" was released as the second single in Europe except in countries such as Switzerland, where "Beat of My Heart" peaked at number eighty-nine.^[2] The single was to be released in the UK in April 2006,^[3] but in lieu of "Fly", the release did not come to pass despite frequent video play.

Blogcritics wrote "Duff is bored and simply going through the motions in the single [...] The bland electro pop is an insult to the genre",^[4] and a Newsround review called it "Soft electronic pop with simple lyrics and a repetitive tune."^[3] Billboard magazine noted that "the beat of my heart" is repeated forty-four times in the song; it also said it "seems to toss her back to her Disney days. Pop music is always appreciated, but this is a kiddie anthem, plain and simple [...] it is hardly a contender for contemporary radio."^[5] IGN says "Beat of My Heart doesn't try for subtlety and uses the overused heartbeat for a foundation rhythm".

Music video

The "Beat of My Heart" music video was shot in Los Angeles, California by director Phil Harder in the week beginning September 26, 2005,^[6] and it pays homage to Bond girls. A representative for Duff's record label said, "She's always been a huge James Bond fan. She watched those movies with her sister growing up, and she loved the Bond girls, because they were always so stylish, and she's stylish." She also said the video would contain "that hip sensibility" of Bond films and present a "more mature" image of Duff.^[6]

The video begins with a graphic produced by an electrocardiograph accompanying the heartbeats in the song, until a beating heart appears as if seen through an X-ray machine.^[6] The format of the video is a series of vignettes, each influenced by the opening title sequences of James Bond films (from the silhouettes featured in the 1960s films to the 3D graphics in the then-recent films); in them Duff, who is often presented performing the song with her band and into a microphone (which is sometimes silhoetted and placed where a gun would be), sports different looks inspired by the different eras of the Bond films.^[6][7] As in the Bond film opening title sequences, the video often moves from one shot to another not through cuts, but with shapes in one shot transforming to form elements of the next shot, and the editing is matched to the beat of the song.^[6]

The video premiered on MTV's Total Request Live on November 9. It entered the TRL top ten countdown at number 3, which became Duff's highest debut ever on the show, on the following day and ascended to number one on November 14.^[8] It remained on the countdown for twenty days, until December 19.^[9]

Formats and track listing

Charts

Release history

References