"The Only Heartbreaker" is a song by Japanese-American singer

Mitski Mitski Miyawaki (born Mitsuki Laycock; September 27, 1990), known professionally by the mononym Mitski, is a Japanese-born American singer-songwriter. Mitski self-released her first two albums, '' Lush'' (2012) and '' Retired from Sad, New Caree ...

, released on November 9, 2021 as the second single from her sixth studio album, ''

Laurel Hell Laurel may refer to: Plants * Lauraceae, the laurel family * Laurel (plant), including a list of trees and plants known as laurel People * Laurel (given name), people with the given name * Laurel (surname), people with the surname * Laurel (mus ...

''. The song was written by Mitski and Dan Wilson. The single became Mitski's first to reach number 1 on the charts, reaching that spot on the US AAA chart.

Background

Mitski said that "The Only Heartbreaker" is about "the person always messing up in the relationship, the designated Bad Guy who gets the blame. It could simply be about that, but I also wanted to depict something sadder beneath the surface, that maybe the reason you're always the one making mistakes is because you're the only one trying." About writing the song with Dan Wilson, she said:

This is the first song in my entire discography of however many albums I've made where I have a co-writer, and it's because this song was this puzzle that I couldn't solve. And I was just sitting on it forever. I have so many iterations of it. Nothing felt right. And right when I was stewing over it, I was actually in LA, doing co-write sessions for other artists. And we had this one day, or I had this one day with Dan Wilson. I had every intention to write for somebody else, but then I just sat down at his piano, and I was like, he's one of the best, smartest songwriters in the world. Maybe he can help me with this song. And so I brought the song to him, and it turned out he's really good. He helped me solve so many of the problems and kind of lead me out of the labyrinth of it. And yeah, I'm really glad that I took that chance with him.

Sue Park of ''

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'' wrote that the song "veers away from subdued

indie rock Indie rock is a Music subgenre, subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the mu ...

and into full-fledged frenzy, recalling the exuberant

synth-pop Synth-pop (short for synthesizer pop; also called techno-pop; ) is a subgenre of new wave music that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s ...

of the 1980s as Mitski implicates herself in the inevitable unraveling of a toxic relationship".

Music video

A music video for "The Only Heartbreaker" was released on the same day as the single, directed by Maegan Houang and Jeff Desom. According to ''

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'', the video shows Mitski dancing through a forest and reeling in despair as she realizes that she's unintentionally killing everything she comes into contact with.

Reception

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

critic Marcy Donelson considered the song to be a highlight on ''Laurel Hell''. Former US president

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

included "The Only Heartbreaker" in his list of top songs of 2021, a list he tweets out every year.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Only Heartbreaker, The 2021 singles 2021 songs Mitski songs Songs written by Mitski Dead Oceans singles American synth-pop songs