The Greatest Pop Song Ever?

**There are a handful of moments where all the good things popular music can do combine in a few minutes, sometimes seconds, of ineffable cohesion: emotion and technicality, complexity and catchiness, something that provokes both wonder and intimacy in equal measure and at the same time. When listening to one of these moments, I am aware of more details than I feel my brain should be able to focus on at once. I am both sharply conscious of layer upon layer of composition and swept up in the affect of the moment. Apart from in ‘Three Colours Blue’ by Krzystof Kieslowski, I have never come across this sensation in any other medium, and in many ways my love of popular music is really an ongoing search for albums which contain it. They are so rare that often even after finding such a piece of music, I only hear it in this way once.**

I usually find these moments either deep into albums by overtly cerebral artists like Radiohead or Massive Attack, or in projects where a band receives an unusual amount of additional expertise in composition and recording, like Joy Division, or the earliest years of Bob Marley and the Wailers. Sometime after my self-righteous years of teenage fandom, when liking music was somehow competetive and exclusive on the grounds of an undefined point of commerciality, I stumbled across one of these moments in a place I would never dream of finding it.
It’s ‘Millionaire’, by Kelis.

I have no doubt that most of the acclaim should belong to André 3000, the guest artist whose stamp is all over this track, but it’s her name that’s on the record and so she’s getting the credit. I’m also aware that a lot of people will probably stop reading upon discovering that I’m so snobbish toward contemporary(ish) r’n’b. I suspect that many music fans will either snigger or point insistently to more highbrow examples of the type – perhaps Janelle Monae, Frank Ocean or The Weeknd. Maybe something by André himself (before this, I had counted ‘Hey-Ya’ as probably the best MTV single of my youth).

‘Millionaire’ is entrancing from start to finish. That tap-dancing electric melody over the simplest of breaks on just a kick and a snare; the casual, fuzzy synths, as warm and wistful as memories of you and your best friends drinking icy drinks in the dog-day evenings of a hot summer. The staccato cymbal which should be annoying but actually just makes the song feel fast as well as slow. The vocals delivered in a sparkling duet, Kelis and 3000 trading effortless verses with a chemistry that never goes anywhere near antagonism. Which isn’t to say it’s not sexy – Kelis especially never sounded better than on her first verse here, confident and vulnerable, wobbling the notes like Erykah Badu and husky as Ella Fitzgerald with a broken heart. 3000 is more mercurial, prefacing Kelis with a sung verse of his own, popping up to provide backing on one her lines and then sliding into his element, a rap that is funny and wise and young and grown-up, which he knows that no-one else could do but doesn’t feel the need to show off about. When it all dissolves away, in a baroque piano line and elegant strings wrapped around a scratched vocal sample and bubbly techno percussion, it feels like it’s come to a natural end but also that it’s over too soon.

It’s a song that shouldn’t be able to do what it does, which is to combine the best of a bunch of contradictory things. The uplifting and the melancholy, classical instrumentation and electronic chic, genuine depth and glamorous surface. Most singles which achieve any one of those things are considered a resounding success. It throws traditional structure out the window but has an intro, hooks, verses, a breakdown, a bridge and an outro, none of which miss a beat. It’s also the right length, the production is impeccable and it’s endlessly repeatable. It’s the best single of the 21st century, and probably ever. Thanks, Kelis.