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Ghost Town (Kanye West song)

"Ghost Town" is a song by American rapper Kanye West from his eighth studio album, Ye (2018). The song features vocals from PartyNextDoor, Kid Cudi, and 070 Shake. It was produced by West while co-produced by Mike Dean, and features additional production from Francis and the Lights, Benny Blanco and Noah Goldstein. The song is a hip hop track, which features psychedelic elements. It is composed around a sample of "Take Me for a Little While", performed by the Royal Jesters, and also includes a sample of "Someday", performed by Shirley Ann Lee.

The mind of West is demonstrated as going through the unravelling process within "Ghost Town", which is connected to mental illness, and West's verse features him gargling unfinished thoughts. The song received generally strong reviews from music critics and was mostly named by them as one of the album's highlights, with general praise from critics going towards 070 Shake's outro. A number of them complimented the lush composition of the song, though other critics expressed somewhat mixed assessments of West's verse. The song was included in end of the year lists for 2018 by multiple publications, including Consequence of Sound and NME.


"Ghost Town" reached number 16 on the US Billboard Hot 100 in 2018, while also peaking at number 14 and 17 on the NZ Singles Chart and UK Singles Chart, respectively. The song has since been certified 2× platinum in the United States by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). West and Kid Cudi have delivered multiple joint performances of the song, including performing it on Saturday Night Live and at the Coachella Music Festival in 2018 and 2019, respectively. The song was covered by both BadBadNotGood and Jungle in 2018. A sequel to the song was released by West and Kid Cudi, as Kids See Ghosts, under the title of "Freeee (Ghost Town, Pt. 2)" on their eponymous debut studio album (2018). The sequel features an interpolation of lyrics from the song.

Composition and lyrics[edit]

Musically, "Ghost Town" is a hip hop track, which was often noted for its rock elements.[19][22][23][24] The song includes a sample of "Take Me for a Little While", written by Trade Martin, and performed by the Royal Jesters, within its leading bass, drum and keys combination.[20][25][26] The opening of the track features a sample of "Someday", as performed by Shirley Ann Lee.[27] Guitars are included within the song, which some writers viewed as psychedelic.[19][24][28][29] In particular, "Ghost Town" has been noted for taking rock influence from Kid Cudi's work, with a "strong presence of guitars" that Will Lavin of Joe.co.uk called "very reminiscent of a couple of tracks" from his second studio album Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager (2010).[19] The Atlantic's Spencer Kornhaber commented that the song features "psychedelic, space-soul, and prog sounds."[18] West's tone is dazed, with him using the same verse melody as that of his Pusha T-featuring single "Runaway" (2010).[21] In the outro, laser sounds are featured.[26]


The song presents the mind of West going through the process of unravelling, with the ongoing speculation around his mental health often being poor.[30] Mental illness is a common theme on Ye; the song is linked to the subject matter of the album that West's mind is unravelling.[30] PartyNextDoor sings about feeling so good that it is dangerous.[18] West's verse on the song sees him gargling multiple half-finished thoughts, as he opens up his mind.[21][31] The lyrics of West's verse include a reference to the opioid painkiller fentanyl from him.[32] While singing the chorus of "Ghost Town", Kid Cudi interpolates vocals from rock and roll artist Dave Edmunds' 1979 version of "Take Me for a Little While".[20] The outro is performed by 070 Shake, featuring her singing about freedom and numbness in a manner that has been described as belting.[10][18][21][28] 070 Shake explained that she used a metaphor for numbness with the line, "Put my hand on the stove, to see if I still bleed."[10]

Release and recording[edit]

"Ghost Town" was released on June 1, 2018, as the sixth and penultimate track on West's eighth studio album Ye.[33] However, West had tweeted out an early track list of the eponymous debut studio album by Kids See Ghosts, a hip hop duo consisting of him and Kid Cudi, on May 15 of that year and this showed the song as originally being scheduled for release on the album.[34][27] It was slated to be released as the fourth track, though the shuffling of tracks between albums recorded by West led to the song being released on Ye instead.[34][27] The song's follow-up was released by Kids See Ghosts on Kids See Ghosts under the title of "Freeee (Ghost Town, Pt. 2)" on June 8, 2018, also being led to by the shuffling.[18][27]


In an interview with Pigeons & Planes, 070 Shake revealed that the song was finished hours before the album's listening party on May 31, 2018, and recalled reference tracks being recorded: "I had done a reference for it, and then I guess he forgot about it. We put that reference on another song, then Kanye did his own reference for that 'free' concept." She explained in the interview that it came close to not making the album's final cut during the recording sessions: "At the end, we were talking and asking, 'Is this the one right here?' And I kind of mentioned 'Ghost Town' and said maybe we could use something from that."[35] 070 Shake elaborated, revealing that after listening to the reference again, West, "said, 'Oh yeah, this is the one.'" She concluded, stating: "So 'Ghost Town' almost didn't make it."[35] According to 070 Shake, she wrote the reference track after first arriving in Wyoming and West had forgotten about it due to him being "very focused on a lot of other things, other songs and stuff [sic], and it just left his mind a little bit."[10] Recording for Ye had started after West made controversial comments about slavery in a TMZ interview earlier in May 2018 that led to the album being re-done afterward.[36]

Critical reception[edit]

"Ghost Town" was met with generally strong reviews from music critics, often being ranked as one of the album's highlights. Meaghan Garvey of Pitchfork pointed to the track as "ye's clear highlight," while she regarded the outro by 070 Shake and Kid Cudi's refrain as being better than West's verse, specially noting that 070 Shake's "performance is unexpectedly magnetic."[21] Carrie Battan from The New Yorker named the track as the best song, pointing out its elements of soul and pop punk, though viewed the track as "the finest example of hip-hop's current fascination with rock music" and praised the outro by 070 Shake for showing that her "androgynous, pubescent voice is used to create a bridge between the joyous and the morbid."[22] Outside of "I Thought About Killing You" and "Yikes", The Independent's Christopher Hooton billed the track as the album's "only other remotely good song."[37] Hooton continued, viewing it as being salvaged by 070 Shake "with a stunning, anthemic and sincere vocal over a crunchy guitar riff."[37] Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone complemented the song for being the only track on Ye that "stands on its own" and also directed praise towards 070 Shake's vocals, though concluded by writing that the song has "genuine heart – enough heart to make you wish Kanye could find a way out of his current creative trap."[23] Douglas Greenwood from NME described the song as the album's "penultimate and perhaps strongest track" and argued that it "owes a great deal to its euphoric, rocky outro" from 070 Shake, with him viewing the outro as "a moment of real clarity on a record that's immediately impactful."[38] Writing for Entertainment Weekly, Alex Suskind highlighted the song as one of Ye's "few bright spots," commenting that it "resembles My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy opus 'Runaway'" and Suskind directed praise towards the lyrical content.[39] Adam Rothbarth of Tiny Mix Tapes commented with praise for Kid Cudi's "purposely gnarly" refrain, West's "elegant vocal performance" and the production of the song.[40] However, Rothbarth opined that the production "sets the perfect foundation for 070 Shake's cyclical" outro and cited the outro as one of the highlights of Ye.[40]


Clayton Purdom from The A.V. Club stated that "Ghost Town" "holds up the entire album" and labeled the song as "a staggeringly dense sound collage that sounds like a wide-open Wyoming night sky coming alive with dreamy laser blasts."[41] The Irish Times' Ed Power referred to the song as "gorgeous and uncomplicated."[42] Trent Clark from HipHopDX pointed towards the "passionate cameo" from 070 Shake on the song as what "unveils a star-in-the-making."[43] Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune said that it shows "West telegraphing his vulnerability through shaky singing," despite concluding that 070 Shake "walks away with the song."[44] AllMusic writer Neil Z. Yeung asserted that the song shines as one of the album's "moments of clarity" and commended the lyrical content.[33] For the Los Angeles Times, Mikael Wood viewed West and 070 Shake's singing as "just astounding" and cited the latter's outro as "a star-making cameo," while also noting the clarity displayed by 070 Shake.[45] Zachary Hoskins was less enthusiastic in Slant Magazine, dismissing West's verse despite naming the song as the most polished track on Ye and positively writing of the guitar, as well as Kid Cudi's vocals.[24] In a negative review for The Line of Best Fit, Ross Horton panned the singing on the song and called it "the kind of thing that you once could, objectively, understand to be joke," with the loudness of the vocals receiving criticism from him.[46] Similarly, Steve 'Flash' Juon of RapReviews complained that having to listen to West's singing on the song makes him "just like 'Whyyyyyyy?'"[47] Juon insisted that his opinion of West lacking in singing ability bared no relevance to any dislike towards him, as Juon admitted that Chris Brown can sing despite not liking him either.[47]

Commercial performance[edit]

Following the release of Ye, "Ghost Town" debuted on the US Billboard Hot 100 at number 16, standing as the highest charting non-single from the album.[61] The song entered the US Streaming Songs chart at number eight, with 29.7 million streams.[62] On the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, it opened at number 11.[63] By debuting at number two on the US Hot R&B Songs chart, the song stood as the only track from the album to enter the charts.[64] The next week, following the release of Kids See Ghosts, the song descended 44 places to number 60 on the Hot 100, though was two places higher on the chart than "Freeee (Ghost Town, Pt. 2)" that week.[65][66] The song was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for selling 1,000,000 certified units in the United States on September 23, 2020.[67] For 2018, "Ghost Town" ranked at number 42 on the year-end US Hot R&B Songs chart.[68]


The track performed best in New Zealand, peaking at number 14 on the NZ Singles Chart.[69] Similarly, the track debuted on the UK Singles Chart at number 17, giving West his third top 40 entry on the chart issue that fell on the date of his 41st birthday.[70] The track reached number 21 on the Canadian Hot 100.[71] On the ARIA Singles Chart, it debuted at number 22 and came close to giving West his third top 20 entry for that week.[72] The track also reached the top 30 in Slovakia, Greece, Ireland and Portugal.[73][74][75][76] In Estonia, the song entered at number 37 on the Singlid tipp-40.[77] The following week, it rose five places to number 32 on the chart.[78] The track experienced lesser performance in the Czech Republic, reaching number 42 on the country's Singles Digitál Top 100 chart.[79]

Appearances in media[edit]

Following the release of Ye, the song became a popular topic with fans of West across Twitter.[31] Avenged Sevenfold member M. Shadows' published a list of his favourite tracks from 2018, which included "Ghost Town" on it.[90] At a fashion show of Virgil Abloh during 2018 Paris Fashion Week, Canadian instrumental music group BadBadNotGood performed a cover version of the song.[91] During the show, West and Kid Cudi were both in attendance.[91] The laser sounds from the song resurfaced on singer Teyana Taylor's track "Issues/Hold On", which was produced by West and released on K.T.S.E. in June 2018.[26][92] The song was covered by English soul musical collective Jungle on September 12, 2018, during a BBC Radio 1 Session.[93]

Recorded at West Lake Ranch, [98][99]

Jackson Hole, Wyoming

Recording


Personnel


Credits adapted from Tidal.[3]

2018 in hip hop music