Musically: excellent, lyrically: a travesty.
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Although Rita Ora fits well and truly under the ‘pop princess’ umbrella, her previous singles have garnered both critical and commercial success, which is something of a rarity nowadays. With three UK number one singles, and a songwriting team that includes Kate Nash and Sir Nolan masterminding ‘Poison’, good things were to be expected from Ora’s latest release, and to an extent, the expectations were met.
With a killer beat, expert production and an anthemic chorus that no matter how hard you try you can’t get out of your head, it’s your standard summer hit; but one thing lets this song down, and it’s the lyrics, which are laughable. The chorus is manageable, if slightly cliché : “I pick my poison and it’s you, nothing could kill me like you do”, but the opening is where it gets really ridiculous. The opening lines of: “I could have beer for breakfast, my sanity for lunch, trying to get over how bad I want you so much, innocence for dinner” make next to no sense. The attempts of edgy, profound lyrics fall short and instead appear to be have written by a child who doesn’t understand what food is.
A strong effort from Ora, which will probably do well, but is let down by the ridiculous lyrics.
‘Poison’ was released on May 18 via Roc Nation & Columbia records.
