Friends That Break Your Heart

Last updated

Friends That Break Your Heart
Friends That Break Your Heart.jpg
Studio album by
Released8 October 2021 (2021-10-08)
Studio
  • The Green Building (Los Angeles, California)
  • No Idle Campus (Los Angeles, California)
Length43:42
Label
Producer
James Blake chronology
Covers
(2020)
Friends That Break Your Heart
(2021)
Wind Down
(2022)
Singles from Friends That Break Your Heart
  1. "Say What You Will"
    Released: 22 July 2021
  2. "Life Is Not the Same"
    Released: 20 August 2021
  3. "Famous Last Words"
    Released: 13 September 2021

Friends That Break Your Heart is the fifth studio album by English singer-songwriter and producer James Blake. It was released by Republic Records and Polydor Records on 8 October 2021, after initially being scheduled for release on 10 September 2021 before being postponed due to delays in physical production as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Contents

Promotion and release

James Blake announced Friends That Break Your Heart on 22 July 2021, and it is scheduled for release on 10 September 2021. [1] [2] "Say What You Will" was released as the album's lead single on the same day. [3] "Life Is Not the Same" was released as the second single on 20 August 2021. [4] On 3 September 2021, Blake announced the album was postponed due to delays in physical production as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and would be released on 8 October 2021. [5] "Famous Last Words" was released as the third single on 13 September 2021. [6] The album is finally released on 8 October 2021. [7]

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
SourceRating
AnyDecentMusic? 7.3/10 [8]
Metacritic 79/100 [9]
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar half.svgStar empty.svg [10]
Clash 8/10 [11]
DIY Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar half.svg [12]
Exclaim! 7/10 [13]
Financial Times Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [14]
The Independent Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [15]
NME Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svg [16]
The Observer Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [17]
Pitchfork 6.6/10 [18]
Uncut 7/10 [19]

Friends That Break Your Heart was met with generally positive reviews. At Metacritic, which assigns a rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received a weighted average score of 79, based on 15 reviews. [9] Aggregator AnyDecentMusic? gave it 7.3 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus. [8]

Ella Kemp of NME praised the album, stating, "Familiar emotionally yet revelatory in its execution, the album sees Blake sing about mundane, almost incidental upsets that sting harder than they should. Piercing lyrics are matched by innovative, fearless production". [16] Ben Tipple of DIY said, "His shifts in sound are as delicate as his music, continuing to showcase his ability to blur styles with unparalleled precision". [12] Helen Brown from The Independent enjoyed the album, saying, "Few artists can make such heartbreak sound so pretty, while still reflecting on all its weirdness and complexity". [15] The Observer 's Kitty Empire wrote, "Many affecting tracks detail the sharknado of outrage and bewilderment in Blake's trademark delicate soprano, offset occasionally by well-chosen collaborators (SZA, or rappers JID and SwaVay) or startlingly pitch-shifted vocals". [17] Nathan Evans of Clash gave a positive review, stating, "The LP's home stretch is up there with Blake's best, not just in the tense penultimate title track and wet-cheeked closer "If I'm Insecure", but on the lead single. "Say What You Will" shows off the magic trick Blake's perfected by now. Vocally, he's unsettlingly beautiful". [11]

Reviewing the album for AllMusic, Fred Thomas stated, "Even though Friends That Break Your Heart travels a winding path from experimental rap tracks to the tender balladry that makes up the majority of its final quarter, it's still one of the more accessible, and occasionally predictable, collections of material from Blake". [10] Peter Boulos of Exclaim! said, "It does occasionally err too heavily towards swaying ballad tropes, but importantly Blake never hides his feelings through allegory or metaphor, nor does he mangle his vocal delivery with electronic trickery". [13] Pitchfork critic Shaad D'Souza said, "Even if the music remains more ambitious than that aspiration, perhaps the most groundbreaking thing about Friends That Break Your Heart is that James Blake has never sounded so safe". [18] Writing for Uncut , John Lewis stated, "Blake's fragmented post-dubstep has always had an air of bleak melancholy, but nothing he's done has been quite as self-consciously miserable as this". [19]

Year-end lists

Select year-end rankings of Friends That Break Your Heart
Critic/PublicationListRankRef.
Clash Clash Albums of the Year 2021
60
Complex The Best Albums of 2021
33
Complex UK Complex UK's Best Albums of 2021
11
The Independent The 40 Best Albums of 2021
29
The Line of Best Fit The Best Albums of 2021 Ranked
28

Track listing

Friends That Break Your Heart track listing
No.TitleWriter(s)Producer(s)Length
1."Famous Last Words" James Litherland 4:16
2."Life Is Not the Same"
3:19
3."Coming Back" (featuring SZA)
  • James Blake
  • Maker
  • Jamil [b]
  • Khushi [b]
3:15
4."Funeral"Litherland
  • James Blake
  • Khushi [b]
2:35
5."Frozen" (featuring JID and SwaVay)
  • James Blake
  • Jamil [b]
3:56
6."I'm So Blessed You're Mine"
  • Litherland
  • Maker
  • Jamil
  • Patel
  • James Blake
  • Khushi
  • Maker [b]
  • Jamil [b]
  • Josh Stadlen [b]
3:15
7."Foot Forward"
2:33
8."Show Me" (featuring Monica Martin)
  • James Blake
  • Maker
  • Jamil [b]
  • Khushi [b]
3:38
9."Say What You Will"
  • Litherland
  • Maker
  • Stadlen
4:40
10."Lost Angel Nights"
  • Litherland
  • Maker
  • Tamposi
3:59
11."Friends That Break Your Heart"
  • James Blake
  • Nowels
3:21
12."If I'm Insecure"
  • James Blake
  • Jamil [b]
4:55
Total length:43:42

Notes

Sample credits

Personnel

Credits adapted from official liner notes. [25]

Musicians

Technical

Design

Charts

Chart performance for Friends That Break Your Heart
Chart (2021)Peak
position
Australian Albums (ARIA) [26] 61
Austrian Albums (Ö3 Austria) [27] 23
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders) [28] 11
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Wallonia) [29] 33
Canadian Albums (Billboard) [30] 66
Danish Albums (Hitlisten) [31] 15
Dutch Albums (Album Top 100) [32] 29
German Albums (Offizielle Top 100) [33] 19
Irish Albums (IRMA) [34] 80
Japan Hot Albums ( Billboard Japan ) [35] 90
Lithuanian Albums (AGATA) [36] 39
New Zealand Albums (RMNZ) [37] 32
Norwegian Albums (VG-lista) [38] 23
Portuguese Albums (AFP) [39] 10
Scottish Albums (OCC) [40] 4
Spanish Albums (PROMUSICAE) [41] 54
Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade) [42] 14
UK Albums (OCC) [43] 4
US Billboard 200 [44] 75
US Top Alternative Albums (Billboard) [45] 7

Release history

Release history and formats for Friends That Break Your Heart
RegionDateLabel(s)Format(s)Ref.
Various8 October 2021 [46] [47] [48] [49]

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