"Heart Attack" is the second English (and third overall) single from
Enrique Iglesias' tenth studio album, ''
Sex and Love''. The song was produced by
The Cataracs
The Cataracs were an American hip hop record production project and duo formed in Berkeley, California, United States, consisting of David Benjamin Singer-Vine (born March 9, 1988) and Niles Hollowell-Dhar (born October 6, 1988). The duo starte ...
, who also produced the album's first single "
Turn the Night Up
"Turn the Night Up" is a song recorded by Spanish singer Enrique Iglesias, released as the lead single off Iglesias' tenth studio album '' Sex and Love''. It was written by Iglesias, Niles Hollowell-Dhar, Marty James and Rome Ramirez, and produc ...
", and was written by Iglesias, Niles Dhar,
Marty James
Marty James Garton Jr. is an American singer-songwriter and record producer from Chico, California.
He has released albums and singles as the front man and producer of Scapegoat Wax and One Block Radius.Birchmeier, Jason (2011)One Block Radius ...
and
Rome Ramirez
Roman René Ramírez (born June 11, 1988), better known as Rome Ramirez or simply Rome, is an American singer and guitarist best known for playing with Eric Wilson from Sublime in the band Sublime with Rome.
Early life
Ramirez was born and ra ...
. The song had its radio premiere on 17 September 2013 and officially impacted
contemporary hit radio in the U.S. on 1 October 2013. It was made available for purchase as a digital download in North America on 8 October 2013.
[iTunes references:
*
*]
Background
After reaching moderate success with the song "
Finally Found You" and very minor success with "
Turn the Night Up
"Turn the Night Up" is a song recorded by Spanish singer Enrique Iglesias, released as the lead single off Iglesias' tenth studio album '' Sex and Love''. It was written by Iglesias, Niles Hollowell-Dhar, Marty James and Rome Ramirez, and produc ...
", Enrique announced "Heart Attack" as his new single. Enrique premiered the song on 24 September 2013. Speaking to
Ryan Seacrest, Iglesias explained the writing process, saying, "I don’t know why we do that. I think both girls and guys, we do that to ourselves. But it's happened to all of us and it's a story we can all relate to … and you think you've learned your lesson and it can happen over and over and over again. The way I look at music and write songs, it's like when you go to the movies, and some songs are more real and some songs are more fantasy."
Composition
"Heart Attack" was written by
Enrique Iglesias,
Niles Hollowell-Dhar
Niles Hollowell-Dhar (born October 6, 1988), known professionally as Kshmr (pronounced "Kashmir" and stylized in all caps), is an American songwriter, DJ, music producer, and musician. He was ranked 23rd on ''DJ Mag''s 2015 Top 100 DJs poll and ...
,
Marty James
Marty James Garton Jr. is an American singer-songwriter and record producer from Chico, California.
He has released albums and singles as the front man and producer of Scapegoat Wax and One Block Radius.Birchmeier, Jason (2011)One Block Radius ...
and
Rome Ramirez
Roman René Ramírez (born June 11, 1988), better known as Rome Ramirez or simply Rome, is an American singer and guitarist best known for playing with Eric Wilson from Sublime in the band Sublime with Rome.
Early life
Ramirez was born and ra ...
,
with production being handled by
The Cataracs
The Cataracs were an American hip hop record production project and duo formed in Berkeley, California, United States, consisting of David Benjamin Singer-Vine (born March 9, 1988) and Niles Hollowell-Dhar (born October 6, 1988). The duo starte ...
, being his second consecutive song written and produced by them. "Heart Attack" is a midtempo
dubstep
Dubstep is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in South London in the early 2000s. The style emerged as a UK garage offshoot that blended 2-step rhythms and sparse dub production, as well as incorporating elements of broken be ...
and
electropop ballad,
[ with lyrics like, "I thought I never want you back / But I don’t wanna live in a world without you."][ Lyrically, the song talks about losing someone and it hitting you like a ]heart attack
A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which ma ...
. In the chorus, he sings, "Yeah-yeah-eh…feeling like a fool-oo-ooh…hit me like a heart attack."
Critical reception
The song received favorable 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 ...
. Kevipod of ''Direct Lyrics
MRC II Distribution Company L.P., doing business as MRC (formerly Media Rights Capital), is an American film and television studio. Founded by Mordecai (Modi) Wiczyk and Asif Satchu, the company funds and produces film and television programming. ...
'' called it "a billion times better than 'Turn The Night Up
"Turn the Night Up" is a song recorded by Spanish singer Enrique Iglesias, released as the lead single off Iglesias' tenth studio album '' Sex and Love''. It was written by Iglesias, Niles Hollowell-Dhar, Marty James and Rome Ramirez, and produc ...
'," writing that "there's piano, there's guitar, and there's also dubstep in this song, which I wonder if The Suspex produced, because it's giving me some Demi Lovato 'Heart Attack
A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which ma ...
' teas. ..The build to the chorus is amazing." Patrick Bowman of ''Idolator
An idolator is a practitioner of idolatry.
Idolater or Idolator may also refer to: Books
*''Os Idólatras'', 1968 Portuguese novel by Maria Judite de Carvalho Music
* Idolator (website), an American music blog
* ''Idolator'' (album), third album ...
'' called it, "a track that marries his seductive Latin pop sensibilities with the bass blaring weirdness of dubstep." Kevin Camilo of ''Sound and Motion'' wrote that "the hook is quite captivating and catches one’s attention especially with the big dub step sounds around it."
Andrew Le of ''Renowned for Sound
''Renowned for Sound'' is an Australian online magazine
An online magazine is a magazine published on the Internet, through bulletin board systems and other forms of public computer networks. One of the first magazines to convert from a pri ...
'' gave the track only 1 out of 5 stars, writing that the result is "a track that sounds like a poor cover version of the songs it rips off. Listeners can easily sing Taylor Swift
Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Her discography spans multiple genres, and her vivid songwriting—often inspired by her personal life—has received critical praise and wide media coverage. Bor ...
’s 'I Knew You Were Trouble
"I Knew You Were Trouble" is a song by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, from her fourth studio album '' Red'' (2012). She wrote the song along with the track's producers, Max Martin and Shellback. A dance-pop, pop rock, and teen pop son ...
' (‘Oh! Oh! Trouble! Trouble! Trouble!’ during the choruses) and Miley Cyrus
Miley Ray Cyrus ( ; born Destiny Hope Cyrus on November 23, 1992) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Known for her distinctive raspy voice, her music spans across varied styles and genres, including pop, country, rock, hip ho ...
’ 'We Can't Stop
"We Can't Stop" is a song by American singer Miley Cyrus, from her fourth studio album ''Bangerz'' (2013). It was released on June 3, 2013, by RCA Records as the lead single from the album. The song was written and produced by Mike Will Made ...
' (as this and Heart Attack feature piano in the verses) over this piece of derivative garbage. Enrique sounds unrecognizable too. The autotune and over-driven vocals snuff out his usually sensual tone and slight accent, as well as any personality left in this track."[
]
Music video
The music video was directed by Colin Tilley
Colin Tilley (born June 27, 1988) is an American filmmaker, music video director, and television commercial director. Tilley is the CEO and owner of Boy in the Castle Productions. He has directed more than 300 music videos.
Tilley directed, pro ...
and visual effects were created by GloriaFX
Gloria FX was a Ukrainian-American visual effects company. The company was known for creating visual effects for feature films, music videos and commercials.
It was founded in 2008 by Tomash Kuzmytskyi and Sergii Mashevskyi, but by March 2020 th ...
. The official music video was released on 25 October 2013 on Enrique's official VEVO account. Camilla Belle is shown as Iglesias's love interest. The video has over 94 million views since its release.
The actual storyline of the music video is revealed that Belle has cheated on Iglesias, the pieces coming together at the end of the video. The bloody hand is the result of catching Belle and her man-on-the-side in bed together, which ended with Iglesias beating him up, almost to death in a fit of rage and Belle, choosing her injured lover over her boyfriend, telling Iglesias to leave, and as could be assumed the contemplated suicide is a result of the split. The video ends with Iglesias deciding whether or not to end his life by jumping from perilous heights while Belle watches him from behind, ending with what appears to be images of Iglesias taking one step backwards.
On 16 October 2013, Iglesias released the lyric video of the single. The video reached 300,000 views in a span of 20 hours. An official sneak peek of the video aired on ABC show '' Good Morning America''.
On 22 October 2013, Iglesias organized an official competition via Universal Republic
Republic Records is a New York City–based American record label owned by Universal Music Group (UMG). It was founded by Avery Lipman and Monte Lipman as an independent label in 1995, and was acquired by UMG in 2000. Republic was initially an ...
. Fans were able to send their self made videos of the new single; the top 25 videos selected by Iglesias were posted on his official Vevo account on YouTube.
Live performances
Iglesias has performed the song on ''Good Morning America'' on 28 October 2013, the TeenNick HALO Awards on 17 November 2013 at the Hollywood Palladium, and the season 17 finale of ''Dancing with the Stars''.[http://m.enstarz.com/articles/29801/20131126/dancing-with-the-stars-season-17-finale-spoilers-lady-antebellum-enrique-iglesias-colbie-caillat-ylvis-to-perform-as-top-3-compete-video.htm ]
Enrique performed the song on The X Factor USA on 12 December 2013.
Chart performance
Release history
References
{{authority control
Enrique Iglesias songs
2013 songs
2013 singles
Songs written by Enrique Iglesias
Songs written by Marty James
Song recordings produced by the Cataracs
Republic Records singles
Music videos directed by Colin Tilley
Songs written by Kshmr
Songs written by Rome Ramirez