Top 100 Best Music Videos of All-Time
76. UNTITLED (HOW DOES IT FEEL)
D'ANGELO
2000
The song's music video was directed and produced in one day at a soundstage in New York City by director Paul Hunter and Dominique Trenier, D'Angelo's manager at the time. The project was originally designed as a part of Trenier's promotional strategy to transform D'Angelo's image and public appeal. On the video's concept, Trenier stated, "the idea was, it would feel like one-on-one with whoever the woman was." D'Angelo, who had been under intense physical workout with personal trainer Mark Jenkins, was initially anxious to appear naked in the video upon hearing Trenier's proposal. In a 2008 interview for Spin, Jenkins discussed D'Angelo's reluctance at the time to the idea for the video, stating "You've got to realize, he'd never looked like that before in his life. To somebody who was so introverted, and then, in a matter of three or four months, to be so ripped-everything was happening so quickly."
The video features a chiseled and muscular D'Angelo, wearing a small gold-chained crucifix necklace, lip-synching while filmed on a platform from the waist-up and appearing nude; he was wearing a pair of pajama bottoms during filming, which were not visible in the video as they were hung low away from the camera's view. Trenier later explained the idea of D'Angelo appearing alone, stating "We didn't want an on-screen love interest. We wanted him to be able to make contact with whoever was watching it one-on-one". Appearing as one shot (although Hunter says he merged two), the music video begins with the camera opening on the back of D'Angelo's head before rotating to the front and drawing back to a larger view of his upper torso, as he begins to lip-synch to the track, set to an all-black background. It continues with camera close-ups of sweat trickling from his tattooed arms, chiseled chest and abdominal muscles, while also flirting with a peak of his shadowed, muscular hip. The video leads to D'Angelo making emotional gestures as he lip-synchs to the choral climax and the end of the song.
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