Kanye West’s Only One Isn’t Very Good, but It Is Selling
Photographer: Guillaume Baptiste/AFP via Getty Images
Kanye West in Paris
Kanye West spent much of 2014 working on an as-yet-unreleased follow-up album to 2013’s Yeezus, which presumably will address his new marriage and the birth of his first child. On Wednesday, West released the first official song from the album:Only One, written from the perspective of his late mother, who asks West to tell his baby daughter about her.
Only One features soft, slow verses sung by an AutoTuned West as Paul McCartney tinkers on the keyboard. The track has been garnering politely positive reviewsbecause, well, it’s hard to hate on a heartfelt love song about someone’s deceased mother (sample lyric: “You know I never left you/Cause every road that leads to heaven’s right inside you”). But the song feels unfinished, like a bonus track instead of the debut single from an album by one of music’s biggest acts. It takes several minutes before a meandering West finds his emotional footing with the line, “I won’t go, I won’t go/No goodbyes, no goodbyes/Just hello.” But the momentum is brief, dissipating a few lines later as he stops to mumble a lyric that should’ve been sung.
Not that these critiques matter much, because people are buying the song anyway.Only One has been trending on Twitter (TWTR) since its release, and the song is already No. 3 on iTunes, where it’s on sale for $1.29. (Official sales figures won’t be out until next week.)
This fact says two things about West: one, that he’s at the Beyoncé-esque stage in his career where even a rough draft of a song can shoot to the top of the charts; and two, that he’s entered a new phase of his career—the plight of the aging, mellowing musician.
At 37, West appears happier than he’s ever been (yes, he literally says this in the song). He’s in a stable, loving relationship—granted, it’s with Kim Kardashian—and has found joy as a father. As a result, the man who once proclaimed, “I am a god,” and portrayed himself as the subject of a Michelangelo painting, is now about as edgy as Kansas (the state or the band, it doesn’t matter; both are pretty tame).
This might alarm Kanye’s fans, who were hoping for another brilliantly bombastic rant of an album. But this happy phase might actually be his greatest artistic challenge. West’s seven albums have all been good; a couple of them have even beenspectacular. He knows how to harness his outsize ego and how to lay bare his demons. Writing about a stable home life in a way that doesn’t feel corny isn’t easy. Not many people can do it, and McCartney has arguably pulled it off better than most.
A press release issued through West’s spokesperson called the rapper’s work with McCartney “prolific,” so it’s likely the two have collaborated on other songs that will also appear on the coming album. McCartney has spent much of his post-Beatles career as a happily married family man, and he has a gift for turning ordinary experiences into songs that are touching and profound (case in point: his 1970 trackEvery Night). Then again, he’s also 72 years old and once thought it was a good idea to release an album called Kisses on the Bottom, so this partnership could easily be a delight or a disaster. But if the early success of Only One is any indication, whatever the duo releases will sell either way.
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