End of the World

"End of the World" is a song by popstar Helena Rossi, the first single from her fourth studio album Four of Hearts. Written by Ben Johnston and produced by top US producers Diplo, Switch & The-Dream, it was released June 25, 2012. As of August 2012, the song sold over 340,000 copies, making it Helena's best seller to date.

Background
Helena Rossi announced that she would follow up the release of her commercial failure, Forbidden Ecstasy/Winding Road, with a new single in July 2011. This announcement took the form of the single Vindicator, which was cancelled mere days after it's announcement. Off the back of a cancelled single, Helena announced another triple A-side single (the first of it's kind in the UK) named Speed of Light, which featured three tracks, Speed of Light, Vindicator and Dance Til We Drop. The release was set for September 26, 2011 as a re-release of her third studio album, Manifesto, but was ultimately cancelled, and neither Speed of Light nor Dance Til We Drop were seen or heard of again. Vindicator later appeared on the fourth studio album.

Finally in May of 2012, Helena promised fans a new single and soon announced the release date for End of the World, June 25th. Fans were hesitant to believe the release after the previous setbacks, but the release went ahead without a hitch, even supported by a promotional tour around England. The song was written by Ben Johnston early in 2012 and recorded by Helena soon after. The song premiered on radio on June 2nd, and was performed live on The Voice UK immediately after. It was then followed by the music video 24 hours later. The song was well received by fans and critics, and featured more tribal and real instruments, different to the artificial dance tracks popularized in the recent decade.

Music video
The music video debut on June 3rd, 2012 through Helena Rossi's VEVO channel on YouTube. The video features Helena Rossi in many different sets doing a variety of things, from an elaborate tango dance to fierce choreography sandwiched between two women. The dance routine was considered overly-sexual and saw it banned from daytime television in the UK, but it has been very popular on late night television shows. The videos sexual content was questioned, as at one point it features a group of women touching and feeling Helena.

The video was praised due to it's heavy emphasis on Helena being the strong female role throughout the entire song. Fans specifically enjoyed the scenes of Helena dancing the tango surrounded by men, but remaining elegant and unphased. Other fans were disappointed for the loose story telling, one critic even commenting "the inconsistency from this video to something as magnificent as Winding Road is just abysmal." The video had been watched over 9 million times by July 3rd, exactly a month since premiere.

It was the first music video revealed from the 9 available on the IV Deluxe Edition DVD. This is the highest amount of music videos Helena has included on a single album. Bundled with the greatest hits, there are almost 30 music videos on both albums.

Track listing

 * Promotional Disc
 * 1) End of the World (Radio Mix)
 * 2) End of the World (Album Version)


 * CD1
 * 1) End of the World (Radio Mix)
 * 2) End of the World (Instrumental)
 * 3) End of the World (Acoustic Mix)
 * 4) End of the World (R3HAB Remix)
 * 5) End of the World (Smims&Belle Remix)
 * 6) End of the World (Music Video)


 * CD2
 * 1) End of the World (Album Version)
 * 2) Spectrum (Florence + the Machine cover) [Live Lounge cover]
 * 3) End of the World (Live @ The Voice UK)
 * 4) Album Sampler (Bridge to the Sky, Vindicator, Damages)
 * 5) End of the World (Unseen Footage)

UK Single Chart
The song debut at #1 with sales of 112,086. This is Helena's 2nd single since Aggression/Rage to reach #1.

Downloads
End of the World debut on the Downloads Chart at #5, with 24,312 downloads in that week alone. In it's official release week it jumped to #4, with sales totalling 23,018.

Airplay
The song debut on UK Airplay charts at #32 with 5238 spins, the week before garnering 2035 plays due to it's early release in the week. The next week it shot up to peak at #12 with 9449 spins in it's 2nd week. While it's third week had an increase in plays (10887), it fell one spot down the chart to #13. The fourth week saw the song fall to #15 with a decrease in spins of 8771. It then dropped out of the Top 20, only in it's fifth week, dropping to #21 with spins of 6757.