Heartbreaker (Mariah Carey song)

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"Heartbreaker"
"Heartbreaker" cover
Single by Mariah Carey featuring Jay-Z
from the album Rainbow
Released Flag of the United States September 21, 1999
Flag of the United Kingdom October 18, 1999
Format CD single, CD maxi single, cassette single, 7" single, 12" single
Genre Dance-pop, R&B
Length 4:46
Label Sony
Writer Mariah Carey, Jay-Z, Jeff Cohen, Narada Michael Walden, Shirley Elliston, Lincoln Chase
Producer Mariah Carey, DJ Clue
Mariah Carey singles chronology
"I Still Believe"
(1999)
"Heartbreaker"
(1999)
"Thank God I Found You"
(2000)


Jay-Z singles chronology
"Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)"
(1998)
"Heartbreaker"
(1999)
"I Just Wanna Luv U (Give It 2 Me)"
(2000)


Rainbow track listing
"Heartbreaker"
(1)
"Can't Take That Away (Mariah's Theme)"
(2)
Greatest Hits (CD #2) track listing
"I Still Believe"
(10)
"Heartbreaker"
(11)
"Thank God I Found You"
(12)
The Remixes (CD #1) track listing
"My All (Morales "My" Club Mix)"
(1)
"Heartbreaker/If You Should Ever Be Lonely (Junior's Heartbreaker Club Mix)"
(2)
"Fly Away (Butterfly Reprise) (Fly Away Club Mix)"
(3)
The Remixes (CD #2) track listing
"Loverboy (Remix)"
(7)
"Heartbreaker (Remix)"
(8)
"Sweetheart"
(9)

"Heartbreaker" is a 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.

Contents

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]

"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]). 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.

The legitimacy of this single's chart success in the U.S. has been questioned, as it appears that the regular commercial single was priced at a low 49 cents in some music stores, to ensure high sales and a high chart position. [5]

"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 and picked up substantial radio airplay across the world, while the videos for it and its remix received heavy rotation.

A scene from the music video.
A scene from the music video.

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 fourth 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 (song), and Michael and Janet Jackson's "Scream". 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).

The music video for the remix.
The music video for the remix.

One of Carey's most famous remixes is known simply as the "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 "Heartbreaker" 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).

  • Heartbreaker [Album Version ft. Jay-Z] 4:46
  • Heartbreaker [Radio Edit ft. Jay-Z] 4:18
  • Heartbreaker [Instrumental] 4:16
  • 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

Chart (1999) Peak
position
U.S. Billboard Hot 100 1
U.S. Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks 1
U.S. Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play 2
U.S. Billboard Top 40 Tracks 16
U.S. Billboard Mainstream Top 40 21
U.S. Billboard Rhythmic Top 40 3
U.S. ARC Weekly Top 40 1
New Zealand RIANZ Singles Chart 1
Canadian Singles Chart 1
Philippine Top Hits 1
Spain Top 20 Singles Chart 1
United World Chart 2
Chart (1999) Peak
position
France Top 100 Singles 4
Brazil Singles Chart 5
UK Singles Chart 5
Netherlands Top 100 Singles 7
Switzerland Top 100 Singles 7
Italy Singles Chart 8
Germany Singles Chart 9
Australian ARIA Singles Chart 10
Norway Top 20 Singles 14
Sweden Top 60 Singles 18
Japanese Oricon Singles Chart 37
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.

  1. ^ http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4155/is_19991214/ai_n13835381
  2. ^ http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_1999_August_13/ai_55434902
  3. ^ http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_1999_Oct_7/ai_56053824
  4. ^ http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_1999_Sept_29/ai_55916242
  5. ^ http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,30848,00.html
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