Ten writers, three megastars, and one below-par song. FourFiveSeconds is not a “too many cooks in the kitchen” problem, this would imply there was a facility for cooking. Paul McCartney, Rihanna, and Kanye West is a collaboration which makes sense given the context of their music or their best works. What does make sense, though, is their collective desire to be chart-toppers. McCartney has shown this most of all, intermittently releasing rancid pop slop with Michael Jackson and using the death of John Lennon to tug at the heartstrings of listeners across the globe. He did make Ram, though. Rihanna has frequented the dependable well of catchy but weightless pop songs. Like a St. Andrews business school graduate brought up on Mad Men binge watches and petrol station sandwiches, she knows where the killer line is, and how long it lasts in the public consciousness. Kanye West is also present.
Life is brighter without hearing FourFiveSeconds. For all the shame professional backflipper Benson Boone receives for his meandering, hollow performances, he at least has nothing to live up to. The trio heard on FourFiveSeconds do, irrespective of their pivots into far-right grifts or board game big-budget film adaptations. This took ten writers. McCartney spilt ink over this. It makes commercial sense for him to be involved in this, smacking around an acoustic guitar he presumably found in a lost and found box in the Windmark studio reception, as he was releasing New at the time. But now New is old, and FourFiveSeconds, like all songs made for commercial purposes, has been forgotten by time. It is a meagre footnote when it should have been a roaring, acclaimed addition to the three artists who collaborated on a single. There is an awkwardness to the project as a concept, and an awkwardness when the finished result is listened to.
Blinded somewhat by Smile Away and Band on the Run, McCartney could have added a little of a wizened, extra moment, had he been given a vocal duty. It seems insane to have him on acoustic guitar only, given he has a voice identifiable even to the most ignorant of Primark shoppers. This is the sort of music piped into their clothing labyrinths. Everything from a tacky organ spot to hammer home the faux, heartfelt occasion to the primitive rhyming structure. A rhyme of “bail” and “jail”? Goodness me. Ten writers. Music made by a boardroom. But what more could have been expected? NineSeconds is a song made by three of the biggest names in pop music, two of whom you can still listen to in public without a rightful sense of shame.
We should expect more of artists who, independent of one another, have made albums worth of timeless material. This is a collaborative process where each has, no doubt, brought differing ideas and fundamentals to the table. In the end, nobody stands out. Not because they are at loggerheads with one another or are trying to perfect the song, but because McCartney, Rihanna, and West are far too busy for the tender care and detail needed to craft a great song. What they make is a popular song, not a good one. This comes not just from having to juggle schedules, but also from being rubber stamp creatives, whose hard work is passed onto the tens and tens of people in the studio, doing the work for them. Work which, in the end, has been forgotten.
