"Heartbreaker" is a song by American singer-songwriter Mariah Carey featuring American rapper Jay-Z for her seventh studio album Rainbow (1999). It was released on August 23, 1999, by Columbia Records as the lead single from Rainbow. The song was written by the artists and produced by Carey and DJ Clue, with additional writers being credited for the hook being built around a sample from "Attack of the Name Game" by Stacy Lattisaw. "Heartbreaker" pushed Carey even further into the R&B and hip hop market, becoming her second commercial single to feature a rapper. Lyrically, the song describes lovesickness towards an unfaithful partner.
"Heartbreaker" received mixed reviews from music critics, many of whom felt it was not original or innovative in terms of a creative step forward. Additionally, it was compared heavily to Carey's 1995 hit single "Fantasy", which also built its hook from a sampled beat. "Heartbreaker" topped the Canadian Singles Chart and the US Billboard Hot 100, becoming Carey's 14th US chart-topper. The single topped the New Zealand Singles Chart and was a top-five single in Croatia, France, Poland, Spain, and the United Kingdom.
Carey performed "Heartbreaker" live on several international television and award shows, as well as on her concert tours. The accompanying music video for "Heartbreaker", directed by Brett Ratner, is one of the most expensive ever made, costing over US$2.5 million. The video features Carey and her friends visiting a film theater and catching her boyfriend (played by Jerry O'Connell) on a date with another woman. Carey played herself and a brunette villainess named Bianca Storm, during a physical altercation scene between the two women. Due to contractual agreements at the time of its filming, Jay-Z was unable to make an appearance in the original music video, though he would appear in a recut version soon after. The video was inspired by several other films, including Grease, Scarface and Enter the Dragon.
Background With her sixth studio effort, Butterfly (1997), Carey started infusing hip hop elements in her songs, working with different, and younger, producers and songwriters. After the album's success and the release of her first compilation album #1's (1998), Carey began to work on her seventh album, Rainbow (1999). Her main focus on the album was to continue on the same path she began with on Butterfly, producing a subtle combination between inspirational ballads and hip hop beats. "Heartbreaker" marked the first time in Carey's career that a rapper was included on a lead single, following Ol' Dirty Bastard, who was featured on the Bad Boy remix of "Fantasy" in 1995. While recording the album in Capri, Italy, Carey claimed to have spent most of the time developing what she felt to be a strong lead single.
Originally, "Heartbreaker" was intended to be part of Carey's debut film soundtrack, Glitter, however, after the film's delay, it was included on her album Rainbow. Prior to the song's radio release, Carey spoke of it in an interview: "It's pretty much [in] the classic style of my up-tempo classics like 'Fantasy' or 'Dreamlover,' [...] But it's kind of fun and has a new edge to it, I think, and definitely having Jay-Z takes it to a whole 'nother level. And [DJ] Clue makes it really fun and stuff."
Recording and lyrics While developing Rainbow, Carey had different ideas for the lead single. After writing the song's core lyrics and producing the main idea and melody, DJ Clue, one of the earlier producers in the project, suggested to Carey the use and incorporation of the hook from "Attack of the Name Game" by Stacy Lattisaw. After agreeing to it, they incorporated Carey's lyrics and melody to the hook, and began recording the song. However, after completing "Heartbreaker", Carey felt it needed a strong male verse, hoping for a rising hip hop artist. She chose to work with Jay-Z and began re-arranging the song as he wrote out his verse. Jay-Z wrote his entire verse and helped produce some of the song's core instrumentals. In an interview with Fred Bronson, Carey spoke of her experience working with Jay-Z: "It's fun when you can find someone that you can relate to and that you respect. Jay-Z is someone I admire as a writer and as an artist. We could be sitting in the studio, and he can freestyle a rhyme that would be incredible just off the top of his head. He doesn't need a pen and paper. I equate that to a singer who can pick up the mike and riff and ad-lib over a song and take you to a totally new place." Aside from her work with Clue and Jay-Z, Carey's longtime friend and background singer Trey Lorenz also took part in the song's production. He provided the back-up vocals in the song, and took part in several small areas of the development of Rainbow. When interviewed by Bronson, Carey spoke highly of Lorenz, "He's an amazing writer and singer, he's so influenced by the old school stuff, yet he's so current. He's known me since before my first album, and he's a great, loyal friend." Aside from the use of the sample and Jay-Z's verses, "Heartbreaker" contains strong female-empowering lyrics, which Carey wrote as a sort of anthem, especially because she felt that she personally has been in a similar predicament in the past.
Composition
"Heartbreaker" is a moderately slow, mid-tempo pop, hip hop/R&B track. According to the music sheet published at Musicnotes.com, the song is written in the key of D♭ major, while the beat is set in common time which moves at a moderate pace of 100 beats per minute. It has a sequence of D–Bm–D as its chord progression. Carey's vocals in the song span from the note of D3 to the high note of C7. The song has a "percolating beat" over which Carey sings with nasal, silken and declarative vocals. The verses feature Carey's signature melismatic style, combined with rapid yet seamless transitions; for example, Carey starts the second verse already in mid-belt "It's a shame to be" while then going off into a whispering coo for "so euphoric and weak."
Aside from background vocal stylings from Lorenz and other women, Carey added her own lowered vocals into the song, giving the impression of a "doubled voice." "Heartbreaker" samples the 1982 song "Attack of the Name Game" by Stacy Lattisaw. The song's hook and loop were taken and incorporated into the melody of "Heartbreaker", as well as being used as its main instrumental components. The lyrics are constructed in the verse-pre-chorus-chorus form. Carey starts with the hook "Gimme your love, gimme your love," repeated eight times. Carey repeats the chorus four times, ending the song with a final "Gimme your love, gimme your love." Chuck Taylor from Billboard described its instrumentation as a "persistent guitar lick" and wrote "There's an identifiable chorus here, and some semblance of verses, but more than anything, this song comes across as a blur of jumbled voices in the background (à la Lauryn Hill), including Carey's own repetitive harmonies, which in this case sound more like a competition than a compliment."
Remixes The song's main remix, titled Desert Storm Remix, features female rappers Da Brat and Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott. It is the first of Carey's remixes that was produced by Desert Storm Records producer and rapper DJ Clue, who makes an introduction on the remix. The remix contains lyrical interpolations and an instrumental sample from "Ain't No Fun (If the Homies Can't Have None)" by Snoop Dogg. In an interview with MTV News, Carey spoke of the song's remix before its official release in August 1999: "And then the remix. I'm so excited about the remix. It's also gonna go on the album, and it features Missy Elliott and Da Brat, and it's kinda like a girl-power answer record, and it's to the loop of Snoop [Dogg]'s 'Ain't No Fun.' They're not ready for that one!". A separate music video was filmed for the remix, shot in black and white and featuring a cameo appearance by Dogg. The Desert Storm Remix received mixed reviews from music critics. Stephen Thomas Erlewine chose the song as one of the top three cuts on Rainbow, alongside the original. Danyel Smith from Entertainment Weekly called it "[an] overblown [...] miscalculation" and wrote "Missy Elliott's and Da Brat's bad sexual politics sink the tired 'Heartbreaker [Remix].' Larry Flick from Billboard, called the remix "muscular" and "street-savvy" and wrote "Missy Elliott and Da Brat lace rhymes into the track, which is enhanced by the sample from Snoop Dogg's 'Ain't No Fun (If The Homies Can't Have None)'."
Additional remixes of "Heartbreaker" include a remix produced by Junior Vasquez that interpolates "If You Should Ever Be Lonely" by singer Val Young, as well as a live mashup of "Heartbreaker" and "Love Hangover" by Diana Ross, performed for VH1 Divas 2000: A Tribute to Diana Ross tribute for Ross. The latter remix was released for digital download and streaming in October 2020, when Carey released the "Heartbreaker" EP as part of her #MC30 EP series.
Critical reception
"Heartbreaker" received mixed reviews from contemporary music critics, some of whom compared it heavily to Carey's previous lead singles. Dara Cook from MTV called the song an "airy ditty" and wrote "[On the song] Mariah exudes as much sentiment as hollowed-out driftwood." Cook continued onto the song's production, writing "By texturing it into the song, producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis have finally found productive use (other than song closing spectacle) for Mariah's high octave shriek." AllMusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine named "Heartbreaker" as one of his top three choices from the album. Danyel Smith from Entertainment Weekly called the song a "delectable confection" and wrote "she smartly uses Jay-Z's droll rap about a bratty girlfriend as tart counterpoint to her creamy tones," however calling it a recycled version of Carey's previous songs "Dreamlover" (1993) and "Fantasy" (1995). Elysa Gardner from the Los Angeles Times called the song "breezy" and noted how Carey "brings a similarly light, sensuous touch" to "Heartbreaker". Additionally, Gardner complimented Jay-Z's rap verses, calling them "sly."
Editor from Rolling Stone Arion Berger, called it "nasal, silken and declarative" while "riding the percolating beat." Additionally, Berger also compared it to Carey's "Fantasy", for its similar usage of a sampled hook. Tom Sinclair from Entertainment Weekly reviewed the song individually, giving it an F. He called it a "rehash" of "Fantasy" and wrote "What self-respecting artist would have the gall to recycle the Tom Tom Club's 'Genius of Love' (the source of 'Fantasy') for a second time in four years? It's a given that pop will eat itself, but this sort of self-cannibalization should be illegal." However, the sample used in "Heartbreaker (feat. Jay Z)" was not the same sample as the one used in "Fantasy". Chuck Taylor from Billboard gave the song a mixed review, writing "Yes it's a hit, and her voice is in fine form, but 'Heartbreaker' is a disappointment in terms of what we know she's capable of writing."
Chart performance In the United States, "Heartbreaker" was released commercially on September 21, 1999. "Heartbreaker" entered the chart at number sixty. The song became Carey's fourteenth chart-topper in the US, spending two weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100. It extended Carey's lead as the female artist with the most number one singles in the country. The only acts still ahead of Carey were Elvis Presley with seventeen (a record she surpassed in 2008 with "Touch My Body" becoming her eighteenth number one single) and the Beatles with twenty. The song was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Additionally, "Heartbreaker" finished at number thirty-five on the Billboard Year-End of 1999. In Canada, the song peaked at number one on the Canadian Singles Chart, becoming Carey's tenth chart-topper in the country.