Attention: Kylie's Forgotten "One"

A great tragedy has befallen Kylie Minogue's fourth single from her recent album X. In the midst of her biggest tour yet, and reportedly on the rocks with Parlophone, her record label since 2000, "The One" has seen its release reduced to a total mess. A number of things have gone wrong with the promotion for the X album from day one, but this screw-up has upset fans more than anything else. Starting with the release of the risky "2 Hearts," the album didn't herald her grand comeback as it should have. Its next singles (both more "classic Kylie" than "2 Hearts"), were released in a risky flip-flop manner with different tracks for different countries. They proved that the album's music was, in fact, likeable, and both "Wow" and "In My Arms" became sizable hits in their respective territories (bigger than the tepid reception of the first single by far). By the time the releases were flipped for the third singles, Kylie was off on tour and the record label didn't step in to compensate with added promotion, seemingly having spent all their budget on the glitzy performances and television specials at the start of the album's cycle. The songs came and went when released, and the album's sales didn't reignite thanks to the lack of public interest. Meanwhile, her tour stops sold out and her reputation as a live performer was soaring even further, with a setlist including much of her new album. It became expected amongst fans that "The One" would be released as the fourth single, after months of speculation that it was being prepared for future release with a new Freemasons remix to back it up. While fan reaction to the whole X project has been mixed overall, it isn't a stretch to say that "The One" was the most universally-loved track of the album. As its summer release grew closer, it was rumored that there would be no physical release to accompany the single, becoming her first full single not to get the full treatment. On top of it, the single would be getting no promotion, and possibly no video. To top it all off, none of this was even confirmed at any point, with fans only getting little snippets of contradicting information even up through the week of release. The download-only release, with no video to accompany it and with radio stations having already dropped it after seeing the lukewarm label support, bombed at a career-low number 36 on the UK charts, falling out of the top 75 altogether the next week. Somehow the one track on X that everyone (myself included) thought would become the album's surefire smash hit single ended up becoming its most neglected (especially ironic given its chorus of "love me love me love me" and its much-hyped, excellent radio remix). This past week, a low-budget video was released, with little more than some nice black-and-white effects to its credit, but at this point there's not much reason to bother. For a label that's been so good to Kylie and her fans, this whole mess is a huge let down. Leave Parlophone, Kylie, before troubled EMI sinks altogether, so this never happens again!

Kylie Minogue, "The One" (Freemasons Remix) (from X)


In other news, Kylie is set to duet with sister Dannii for the theme song to an upcoming British soap opera (fittingly, Beautiful People). The track they'll record is none other than "The Winner Takes It All," a cover of the classic ABBA single. They are said to be running with the great reaction they got to Dannii's surprise cameo to perform the hit "Kids" onstage with Kylie during her Showgirl Homecoming tour. Ironic, though, coming right after her less-than-stellar X success and Dannii's recent run of flops (woops!).

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