Rita Ora seems like a name that has been around for a long time, but it’s actually only 8 years ago that we were first alerted to her talents when she was featured on DJ Fresh’s ‘Hot Right Now’ track.

Since then she has gone from strength to strength, with her debut album release 7 months after ‘Hot Right Now’ also topping the charts. Other people may know her from the TV work she has done, with The Voice series or more recently ‘The Masked Singer’. Wherever you have come across Rita Ora, and it’s likely you will have, it is pretty undeniable that at 29 she has amassed a huge following of fans and possesses all the gifts that make the British star a hugely successful world wide phenomenon. 

A lonely muted guitar plays at the beginning of this latest song, which is pretty apt for the theme of the lyrics. Depicting the loneliness of breaking up from a relationship. In contrast to the theme ‘How To Be Lonely’ the melody line is busy, with a pop feel plus hints of RnB, and a powerful beat that gives this sad song an energy. Supported by uplifting backing vocals and nice combinations of slick production to fit synths and live guitars together, the sound is very full. The hook of the chorus is really effective and never lets you forget what this song is about and keeps your head nodding to the beat in a very agreeable way. It isn’t just the power of the lyrics that make this song a hit, the vocal from Rita Ora stays steady in the chorus and verse, but towards the end has more of a free reign to showcase the soul and power behind her delivery and any singing critic is going to be impressed with the accuracy of that. 

With emotion, power and energy in ‘How To Be Lonely’, Rita Ora has proved yet again that her talents in song creation, production and delivery are really quite something. She is only in the early stages of her career, as she will no doubt continue to grow and evolve her career and become one of the UKs most successful ever performers.

 Singer-songwriter     Pop 

Author: Phil Arnold

Phil Arnold is a musician, producer and music reviewer from Devon, in the South West of England. Whilst not writing music reviews, Phil also writes and records under the name of Ugbrooke.