Good Songs People Forget About: D'Angelo, "Untitled (How Does It Feel)"

Over the past few months, I'd been trying to find a copy of D'Angelo's 2000 album "Voodoo", convinced that it was a good R&B album that contained the single "Untitled (How Does It Feel)", which I remembered liking when it was released. I finally snagged a copy of "Voodoo" a few weeks ago, and after listening to it a few times straight through, I realized it was really a fantastic R&B album -- this is a set of slow jams, no doubt, but D'Angelo has the presence on the microphone to prevent the songs from sounding like carbon copies of each other. Each track sounds like both a remolding of classic soul music and an original, 21st-century jam that puts contemporary, poppy R&B artists to shame. There's not much emphasis on lyrics, but that's fine. "Voodoo"'s heart is its throbbing percussion, gliding horns, finger snaps, smooth-as-motherfucking-silk vocals, and the sweat dripping from every note. It might be a little silly to compare an R&B album to MBV's "Loveless", but like that album, "Voodoo" practically radiates warmth.


Anyway, "Untitled (How Does It Feel)" was its third single, and the one that made the most commercial impact, mostly through its video. It is entirely comprised of D'Angelo naked, singing to the camera as it explores his ripped body. The video was both decried for its lewdness and hailed for its artistry, and was nominated for 4 Video Music Awards, including Video of the Year (it lost to "The Real Slim Shady"... which I'm sort of okay with). My opinion of the video is mixed -- it perfectly captures the song's minimalistic tone, but I would never claim it a work of genius. It's an interesting concept, I guess. But what I'm much more interested in is the song itself, which is the most baffling choice for a single imaginable.


The album track is over seven minutes long, but it was cut down to a little over four minutes for the single, I guess because the video director figured that was enough time to see D'Angelo naked. It's a shame, because it really should be appreciated in its original form. "Untitled" begins as the quintessential sex song: a little bit of cymbal-tapping, bass set on "funk" mode, simple piano figure, and an electric guitar lick that Prince should have thought of. In fact, D does a nice job mimicking the Purple One on the track, singing almost entirely in falsetto. He creeps over the bass line, careful not to puncture it; it's almost as if, at the beginning of the song, D'Angelo knows he's eventually gonna tear this bitch up, but for now he's just gonna work the melody. Vocal tracks are consistently layered over his vocals, making it sound like Boyz II Men just invaded the studio, but he always brings the focus back to his aching pipes. Even during the sing-along chorus, D'Angelo is interjecting some dead-serious come-ons, convincing everyone listening that, yes, he wants to have some sex.

But D'Angelo... he keeps it smooth. The interplay between the verses and the choruses is what keeps this song fresh at its gargantuan running time. Each verse is light as air, with D hovering over his boundless emotion before plunging head-first into it during the chorus. The musical shift isn't that jarring, but when that choir comes in to ask, "How does it feeEEEeel?", it's like the sun charging through a sea of gray clouds. Thematically, it represents the moment when thoughts become meaningless, and movements are instinctive. After spouting out reassuring lines like "I can provide that you desire" and "Won't you come closer to me baby" in that heavenly falsetto, D'Angelo becomes tired with talking, and just wants to know how it feels, how she feels, how everything feels. The tempo doesn't pick up, and if the electric guitar becomes more noticeable, the effect is slight. The chorus is decidedly simple, primal, cutting straight to the bone, the moment where D'Angelo just shuts the fuck up and takes it all in. It's a brilliant conceit, and it's hard to imagine it being done more effectively.

But the song is seven minutes long, so it has to go somewhere, right? Right. The bridge basically exists in a pool of ether -- just that drum tapping away, maybe a piano note here, a guitar squeal there. "I wanna... lay you down," D'Angelo whispers, as if he wants the line to be so personal he doesn't want the mic to pick it up. It takes a while for things to become more immediate, but then the backing vocal harmonies slowly swell up, and D'Angelo lets out a glorious wail, and the chorus charges back to the forefront. It's practically the same as every chorus thus far, but something's different. As D'Angelo promises to "take you away from here", it becomes very apparent that the stakes are higher now, that each note is being sung with more force and D is filled to the brim with feeling. And then everything bursts at the seams: with 29 ticks left in the song, D'Angelo lets out one of the most impassioned, beautiful, hypnotic sounds to ever escape a person's mouth, a searing scream that he continues to smother the melting chorus with until the end of the song. It's the song's indispensable climax, and represents one of my favorite moments in any song. And before you've decided whether to smile or to cry, it's all over -- in fact, it ends mid-word, as the choir of voices utters "How does it FE-", and everything goes black. This behemoth of a song burns brightest before becoming extinguished.

I'm sure some people remember this song, but it didn't surprise me that a lot of people don't. First of all, you have to REALLY like R&B to enjoy it; this isn't radio-ready rhythm & pop in the vein of Ne-Yo, this is a crushing soul jam that drips wax. You also have to keep in mind that D'Angelo isn't the most prolific of cats. After releasing "Voodoo" seven years ago, he's been charged with possession, in and out of rehab, and almost died in a car accident. He's supposedly recording a new album, to be released next year, but I won't hold my breath. And you know, it's not unforgivable that people don't know about this song or D'Angelo, but I do find it a little surprising because "Voodoo" really was a big success. It debuted at #1, has gone platinum, and went on to win two Grammys, but I don't see it, or "Untitled", getting the kind of conscious recognition that Lauryn Hill still receives for "Miseducation". Maybe it's because that album was much more accessible, and maybe because Hill decided to become a recluse instead of a screw-up, but I still think D'Angelo's "Voodoo" stacks up higher when compared to it. But even if D'Angelo never records a follow-up and "Voodoo" fades into obscurity, "Untitled (How Does It Feel)" is still a tremendous song, a moving song, a track that deserves to be listened to and appreciated and studied. And that video... well, it's something that D'Angelo can look back on to appreciate his appearance, now that he looks like this.