"Gone" is a song by American hip hop artist Kanye West from his second studio albumLate Registration. Produced by West and featuring guest vocals from fellow rappers Cam'ron and Consequence, the track contains samples of "It's Too Late" as performed by Otis Redding. The song gained newfound fame in 2013 when a woman quit her job and created a video featuring interpretative dance set to the song. The clip, which received millions of views, led "Gone" to debut within the top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100 eight years following its release.
The song contains some of the most elaborate orchestral arrangements on Late Registration. The composition begins with a vocal sample of "It's Too Late" by Otis Redding and a two-chord piano ostinato, followed by a simplistic funk beat. The string section is composed of ten violins, four violas and four cellos which alternate between rhythmically punctuating the verses with staccato bursts, and accentuating the chorus with a more fully formed melody. After the third verse, the song enters an instrumental passage before returning with a fourth and final verse from West, where the rise of the vocals is reflected by the increased complexity in the string arrangement.
Reception
Contemporary music critics were positive in their assessments of "Gone" upon its appearance on Late Registration in 2005. Spin singled out "Gone" as the best track on Late Registration, while praising Cam'ron's "blistering" verse; Pitchfork was similar in their appraisal of Cam'ron's performance: "the ineffable Cam'Ron continues his magical run with savant-like witticisms on 'Gone.'" Josh Tyrangiel of Time praised West's storytelling ability and appreciated his musicality, stating "one listen to 'Gone', built around an Otis Redding sample and some ecstatic string arrangements, and you might be persuaded that West is as good as he thinks he is."
In September 2013, Marina Shifrin, an overworked video editor for Taiwanese animator, Next Media Animation, decided to quit her job and created a video of her dancing to "Gone" in her deserted office at 4:30am. "My boss only cares about quantity and how many views each video gets," she said in scrolling text over the clip, representing the media industry's larger challenge to find the right balance between producing great stories and scoring many page views. The video's views soared, and as a result, U.S. digital sales of "Gone" spiked from minuscule levels in the previous week to 9,000, leading the eight-year-old track to debut at number 18 on the Billboard Hot 100. Overall usage of "Gone" across YouTube pulled in 6.2 million U.S. streams for the song, according to Nielsen BDS, enough to send the title onto the Streaming Songs chart at number four. "Gone" concurrently debuted on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs at No. 6 and Rap Songs at No. 4.
Chart positions
Personnel
Information taken from Late Registration liner notes.
Songwriters: Kanye West, Dexter Raymond Mills, Jr., Cameron Giles, Harold Willis
