''Fire Within'' is the second studio album by English musician Birdy, released on 16 September 2013 by 14th Floor Records and

Atlantic Records Atlantic Recording Corporation (simply known as Atlantic Records) is an American record label founded in October 1947 by Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson. Over its first 20 years of operation, Atlantic earned a reputation as one of the most i ...

. It is her first album of predominantly original compositions, as her eponymous debut album consisted largely of covers. Birdy collaborated with several producers including

Jim Abbiss Jim Abbiss is a British music producer, best known for his work on records including the debut album of Editors ('' The Back Room''), Arctic Monkeys' Mercury Music Prize winning debut album, ''Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not'', Ka ...

Rich Costey Rich may refer to: Common uses * Rich, an entity possessing wealth * Rich, an intense flavor, color, sound, texture, or feeling ** Rich (wine), a descriptor in wine tasting Places United States * Rich, Mississippi, an unincorporated commun ...

Jake Gosling Jake Gosling is an English music producer, songwriter, remixer, manager, and publisher best known for his work with artists such as Ed Sheeran, Lady Gaga, The Libertines, James Bay, Shawn Mendes, All Time Low, One Direction, Major Lazer, Christ ...

John Hill John Hill may refer to: Business * John Henry Hill (1791–1882), American businessman, educator and missionary * John Hill (planter) (1824–1910), Scottish-born American industrialist and planter * John Hill (businessman) (1847–1926), Austral ...

Ben Lovett Ben Lovett (born May 3, 1978) is an American singer, film composer, songwriter and producer. Lovett is the founder of record label, Lovers Label. His non-film compositions are released under the names Lovett and Lovers & Friends. Previous wor ...

Eric Rosse Eric Ivan Rosse is an American composer, songwriter, record producer, and mixer. Rosse started playing piano at age 8, eventually studying orchestration and arranging with Joe Rotundi Sr., whose mentorship—along with influences of soul, rock ...

Fraser T Smith Fraser Thorneycroft-Smith (born 8 February 1971), known professionally as Fraser T. Smith, is an English record producer, songwriter and musician. Some of the singles he collaborated on include Adele's "Set Fire to the Rain", James Morrison's " ...

Ryan Tedder Ryan Tedder (born June 26, 1979) is an American singer, songwriter, and record producer. As well as being the lead vocalist of the pop rock band OneRepublic, he has an independent career as a songwriter and producer for various artists since th ...

, Dan Wilson and

Greg Wells Greg Wells is a Canadian musician, record producer, songwriter and audio engineer. Wells has songs on over 130 million albums sold. He has worked with John Legend, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Ariana Grande, Jazmine Sullivan, Kid Cudi, Adele, Rufus Wai ...

during its recording. The album includes the singles "

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", "

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", "

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" and " Words as Weapons". ''Fire Within'' received generally positive reviews from

music critics Music journalism (or music criticism) is media criticism and reporting about music topics, including popular music, classical music, and traditional music. Journalists began writing about music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on w ...

. In North America, ''Fire Within'' was released on 3 June 2014. Prior to that, several album tracks and live versions of past songs were released as a US-only EP titled '' Breathe'' on 24 September 2013.

Background and recording

Following the commercial success of her debut album '' Birdy'' (2011), Birdy decided for her second record to be mostly of original compositions instead of covering songs like in her previous album. She noted that she began writing songs aged eight, and considers this album "very special" for her. She also talked about her experience as a songwriter: "A lot of people thought he couldn't writebut then it was good doing it by stealth so I could develop my own writing and have time to work on it." For ''Fire Within'' Birdy worked with various musicians during its recording including

, Dan Wilson,

from the British folk rock band

Mumford & Sons Mumford & Sons is a British folk rock band formed in London in 2007. The band currently consists of Marcus Mumford (lead vocals, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, drums), Ted Dwane (vocals, bass guitar, double bass), and Ben Lovett (vocals, key ...

Tim Commerford Tim Commerford (born February 26, 1968) is an American musician, best known as the bassist and backing vocalist for rock band Rage Against the Machine, and supergroup (music), supergroups Audioslave and Prophets of Rage. Since 2013 and 2015, he ...

from American rock band

Rage Against the Machine Rage Against the Machine (often abbreviated as RATM or shortened to simply Rage) is an American rock band from Los Angeles, California. Formed in 1991, the group consists of vocalist Zack de la Rocha, bassist and backing vocalist Tim Commerfor ...

, Paul Jackson Jr. and

Omar Hakim Omar Hakim (born February 12, 1959) is an American jazz, jazz fusion and pop music drummer, producer, arranger and composer. He has worked with Weather Report, David Bowie, Foo Fighters, Sting, Madonna, Dire Straits, Bryan Ferry, Journey, Kate B ...

. She released a preview of the recording of the album through

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alongside the album's release date. Birdy cited the changes of routine and relationships she had after her breakthrough work as a primarily influence for the album.

Critical reception

''Fire Within'' received generally positive reviews from

. At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which assigns a

weighted mean The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 66, based on seven reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews".

Track listing

Notes

* signifies an additional producer. * signifies a strings producer.

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

Notes

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Fire Within (Birdy Album) 2013 albums Albums produced by Dan Wilson (musician) Albums produced by Fraser T. Smith Albums produced by Greg Wells Albums produced by Jake Gosling Albums produced by Jim Abbiss Albums produced by Ryan Tedder Atlantic Records albums Birdy (singer) albums 14th Floor Records albums