Rated ORA - Rita Ooh rara

The English equivalent to Rihanna has dropped her debut album. It looks set to take the number 1 spot this Sunday, but does ORA deserve it? The answer in short is yes, considering some of the other albums that have claimed this coveted position in the past (Justin Bieber?!), however as a collection of songs created to set Rita apart from her musical peers ORA doesn't reach the same level as superstar albums such as Talk That Talk and 4. 

Intro 'Facemelt' sounds cool, with the revving engine production and military drums under Rita's sassy rap, but why it wasn't made into a full track is unfathomable. The album does of course contain new single 'How We Do (Party)' and epic debut single 'R.I.P', both of which are brilliant pop songs, the latter one of the 2012's finest. These moments are only matched by the stunning 'Radioactive' which serves as the second best song out of 15 and will be the next single release (there is a God).

For a debut album which has been in the pipe line for over a year and has had EVERYONE working on it, ORA isn't a 5 star record nor does it escape the urge to press skip for more than 50% of its run time. Thankfully, the 3 brilliant songs are enough to make it worth a listen, but frankly there's far too much 'average' populating the tracklist.

2/5