Back at One is the fifth studio album by American singer Brian McKnight, released on September 21, 1999, by Motown Records. The album followed the same pattern as McKnight's previous album of original material, Anytime (1997), in which he began his transition from urban adult contemporary into the hip hop soul market. Back at One contains a mix of hip hop-influenced contemporary R&B songs, as well as a variety of ballads. While McKnight co-wrote and produced nearly every song on the album, he also worked with a few new producers, including Rodney Jerkins, his brother Fred Jerkins III, and Anthony Nance.
Upon its release, the album received generally mixed reviews from music critics. A commercial success, Back at One sold 144,000 units in its first week of release, reaching number seven on the US Billboard 200. McKnight's most successful album to date, it sold more than 3.0 million copies worldwide and was certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and platinum by Music Canada. The album produced three singles, including its title track which reached number two in the US, and garnered nominations for the Grammy Award for Best R&B Album and the Soul Train Music Award for Best R&B/Soul Album.
Background
In 1997, Brian McKnight released his third studio album Anytime. Following the moderate success of his previous album I Remember You (1995), the singer, who was used to writing, playing and producing most of his music by himself, decided to work with a wider range of musicians on the album, including Sean "Puffy" Combs, Keith Thomas, and Poke & Tone. However, while Anytime exposed McKnight to a wider audience, taking his work further into the hip hop soul genre, McKnight disliked their approach to incorporate sampling on their songs. After the commercial triumph of Anytime, McKnight signed with Motown Records to release his first Christmas album Bethlehem (1998) and began work on his fourth album. While he enjoyed working on the record, McKnight was tormented by personal problems during the production process since he had fallen in love with someone else outside of his marriage with his wife Julie. In a 2012 interview, McKnight elaborated : "If Anytime was the spark, then Back at One became the fire. I was doing things then that I had never done before, that an audience had never heard or seen [...] I don't even listen to that record because it was the highest and lowest point of my life, because of this person."
Critical reception
Stephen Thomas Erlewine from Allmusic felt that with Back at One "McKnight has figured out a way to make his gospel-flavored contemporary urban soul sound fresh, mainly by keeping the focus on the songs. There's nothing extraneous on Back at One: All 13 songs are given clean presentations, and he blesses them with impassioned performances. At times, the material itself is not particularly interesting, but most albums have filler; what counts is the good stuff, and there's enough of it on Back at One to make it another solid effort from McKnight." In a contemporary review, The Rolling Stone Album Guide wrote that "excepting the occasional boilerplate slow jam, One is McKnight's finest effort."
Writing for Billboard, Michael Paoletta found that "like its predecessor, 1997's Anytime, Back at One finds the singer keeping it sublime yet simple on an acoustic-based set. This, of course, allows McKnight ample room to showcase his smooth, simmering vocals." In her review for the Los Angeles Times, Connie Johnson wrote that "McKnight records the ultimate background music, ideally suited for a candlelight dinner for two, not to mention more intimate interludes – music that's not distracting, in other words. McKnight is certainly not unpredictable [...] Everything is as classy and correct as one would expect from a McKnight project. Basically, it's pretty but not essential."