Rita Ora - Ora

Ritanna
Although 2012 has provided more than enough reasons to be proud to be British, there's one element of UK life that's still mundanely shite: the pop charts. Each and every song that's grabbed a No#1 in the past 2 or 3 years with the occasional exception (Adele, Cee Lo Green, Coldplay - and even those struggle to capture the imagination) has been of the same, routine compost-heap blend and I'm not really sure how many times I have to complain about that until it changes. To grab a top spot today you have to either:
  • Sing about how lovely it is to "be yourself" and "stay true to who you are" and ignore "haters" and the commercial aspect of life. See: Jessie J, Katy Perry, Bruno Mars.
  • Be on the X Factor. See: JLS, Cher Lloyd, Little Mix, One Direction.
  • Dance until your fucking legs fall off and even then keep dancing on bloody stumps. See: Jennifer Lopez, DJ Fresh, David Guetta.
  • Be a "national treasure" and commemorate something really fucking archaic and useless like the Queen or the troops or the English football team. See: Military Wives, Gary Barlow, James Corden.
Rita Ora ticks two of these boxes and also comes as part of a Jay-Z Roc Nation packaging, so where along the line exactly she showed off the potential to warrant such a label should be evident with this, her debut album, cunningly marketed with her name as the album title and off the back of about 23 feature spots.

Ritie Lott

As much as I may protest the abundance of producers and supposed writers (because apparently 'How We Do (Party)' took 12 including the samples), drafting in Major Lazer cannot be seen as anything other than a coup and the brief introduction 'Facemelt' at least shows a glimpse of promise for Ora, with token jungle hooks and a series of accelerating car sound effects. Vocally, Ora is reminiscent of occasional Bodyrox-collaborator Luciana here. Drums and edges are polished though for The-Dream produced Roc the Life, a less-than-subtle nod to her new record label with pretty catchy vocal hooks and a decent beat. It almost sounds fresh, which is less than can be said for Teenage Dream knock-off 'How We Do (Party)'. Are we still in need of reminders that sex and partying is enjoyable through the medium of pop music? The excellent Heartbeat by Nneka is then reduced to a series of drawn-out melodies and tiresome guest spots from Tinie Tempah on 'R.I.P.' It's vaguely listenable in the same sense that raw racoon meat is edible.

Getting around a bit now, Sia provides writing credits for 'Radioactive', a pretty run-of-the-mill synthpop track in dire need of education that radioactivity would more likely result in lymphoma than a banging club scene. For what it is, however, it's a pretty fun and catchy track. Sadly, it all goes downhill like a fat corpse in a barrel from here. "Set the world on fire!" Ora proclaims in the doggedly boring 'Shine Ya Light', the latest in a painfully long line of "inspirational" soft-dance tracks with no real motivational aspect for anyone capable of reading more than tweets. The questionably successful J Cole "lends his hand" to 'Love and War', the real embarrassment of the album in that not only does it use the line "and yo this fighting shit is getting too old/ and you gon' find yourself left out in the cold", but also sounds identical to Cheryl Cole's Love Killer.

Save for the further Luciana resurrections on 'Uneasy', the rest of the album continues to thrive off of mediocrity and a careful summary of everything already present in pop music without Ora. Personal favourite will.i.am. pops up on 'Fall in Love' and uses the cunning strategy of repeating the song title over a synth! Ora cries behind her sunglasses on 'Been Lying', a song not at all reminiscent of Kelly Clarkson's Mr. Know it All. Finally on 'Hello, Hi, Goodbye', a title which really could pass for the album's sole resonant points, she borrows Beyonce and Major Lazer's Run the World/ Pon de Floor sound for some more indistinguishable bollocks.

Marita and the Diamonds

It's just all repackaged, remixed and redistributed shit that you'll have heard before if you've listened to a radio - either willingly or stuck in a queue at Subway - in the past 5 years. I've seen more essence of "who Rita Ora is" in a bowl of muesli that's been left in the sun for 2 weeks. She is mould. She's a talentless, attractive waste of decaying fucking air.

Rating: 2/10
Highlights: Facemelt, Uneasy, Radioactive, Roc' the Life
Avoid: Love and War, Shine Ya Light, Fall in Love, How We Do (Party), Hello Hi Goodbye, Been Lying

Artwork Watch: ANOTHER POPSTAR JOINS THE "I have a hand over one of my eyes" MOVEMENT
For fans of: Blending every already-existing popstar into one boring, indistinguishable pulp, Rihanna's b-sides
Up next: Two Door Cinema Club

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