It Was Good Until It Wasn't is the second studio album by American singer and songwriter Kehlani. It was released on May 8, 2020, by Atlantic Records. It features guest appearances from Tory Lanez, Jhené Aiko, Masego, Lucky Daye and James Blake, as well as uncredited vocals by Ty Dolla Sign.
Three promotional singles preceded the album's release. "Toxic", "Everybody Business" and "F&MU" were made available on March 12, April 16 and April 30, 2020, respectively. The official lead single "Can I" was released on June 3, 2020. Several of the album's tracks had accompanying music videos that were shot at the singer's home due to the coronavirus pandemic. The album debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200 chart.
Background
On their 25th birthday, Kehlani announced the title and release date of their second studio album. They subsequently shared the album's artwork throughout social media, which finds them peeking over a wall in their garden while holding a water hose. Shortly prior to this, Kehlani signed a worldwide publishing deal with Pulse Music Group which includes their entire music catalog in addition to future works with Pulse's Vice President of A&R citing that, "[Their] talent both as an artist and songwriter is undeniable and seeing [their] career skyrocket in such a short time is incredibly impressive. We can't wait to get to work and to be a part of [their] team in this next stage of [their] career".
In early 2020, Kehlani had a guest appearance on Justin Bieber's fifth studio album Changes on the song "Get Me". They also featured on Megan Thee Stallion's third extended play, Suga. After much anticipation, Kehlani took to their Twitter to announce their "new album is done" and called it their "best work yet". In addition to the album's release, Kehlani also released a handful of singles, including a collaboration featuring singer Keyshia Cole titled "All Me". A duet with rapper YG, who Kehlani also had a relationship with upon the release of the single, titled "Konclusions" was released on Valentine's Day 2020 along with a music video. Just three days after their collaboration, the singer responded with a song titled "Valentine's Day (Shameful)" on which they confirmed their break up. The song was released on SoundCloud and was released on additional streaming services later on. “You Know Wassup”, which was released in November 2019, detailed some of the struggles during their relationship with YG as well.
Marketing and sales
On March 12, 2020, Kehlani released "Toxic", the first promotional single of the project. The song addresses the fraught aspects of a toxic relationship. The song peaked at number 68 on the Billboard Hot 100. The album's second promotional single, "Everybody Business" was released on April 16. "F&MU" was released on April 30 along with the album's pre-order as the project's third promotional single. All of the songs were accompanied by "Quarantine Style" visuals and music videos.
The album was released on May 8, 2020, by Atlantic Records. The album was made available for pre-order on April 30 alongside the song "F&MU". Kehlani was set to embark on the Changes Tour alongside Justin Bieber. The tour was set to begin on May 14 but was postponed due to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
In its first week of release, It Was Good Until It Wasn't debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200 chart, based on 83,000 album-equivalent units earned (including 25,000 copies of pure album sales). This became Kehlani's second album to reach the US top five. The album also accumulated a total of 74.68 million on-demand streams of the album's songs during the tracking week.
On June 3, 2020, "Can I" was released as the album's first official single. The songs "Open (Passionate)" and "Bad News" received music videos on May 8 and July 9, respectively.
Critical reception
It Was Good Until It Wasn't was met with generally positive reviews. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received an average score of 77, based on 13 reviews. Aggregator AnyDecentMusic? gave it 7.3 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus, while Album of the Year assessed the critical consensus as a 72 out of 100, based on 13 reviews.