As MTV takes its last gasp and closes its last music channel in the UK, it’s strangely nostalgic to look back at the days when multiple TV channels streamed music videos for hours on end every day, but that gave birth to the pop-as-product era of the 2000s and the age of influencers we’re in today. Artists aim to be heard and seen at the same time. At that time, not all artists were inclined to glamor. Some have created quirky or humorous videos by dressing up like cartoon characters, like the quirky clips of Busta Rhymes and Missy Elliott. The sassy and sultry R&B group is hardly ever naked, but for some reason they wear open leather jackets, pants, and combat boots in the hot desert sun. Everyone took notice as Untitled dropped and a topless D’Angelo slowly spun around, the camera moving up and down his torso with molasses-dripping speed.
Alamy“When I was in college, I lived in a house with two black women who had very different tastes in men,” she recalls. fredara hadleyauthor and Juilliard professor of ethnomusicology. “But from the first chord, the three of us crash-landed on the couch and watched that untitled video as if we hadn’t just watched it hours before.”
Hadley points out that the video was released at a time when women were increasingly objectified in music videos of all genres. Britney Spears’ Oops!…I Did It Again was released the same year, as was Destiny’s Child’s Independent Women. And while the women in the video spin their careers to empower them, the men were clearly not being featured solely for the female gaze. D’Angelo’s videos were outstanding and won him a Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance in 2001. Voodoo won R&B Album of the Year for its love-drunk lyrics, which reveal more romantic lyrics. In “Lady,” D’Angelo sings about loving his girlfriend and wanting to share it with everyone. “The Root” is about a man who falls too much in love with a woman and asks a doctor for help.
“It was a kind of therapy for me. [The Root]…Because I’m so pathetic in this song.” D’Angelo say In a 1999 documentary filmed about the making of Voodoo. “That’s The Root. She made me do it, and I just messed up.”
And so Untitled became a departure. Touré, the journalist who interviewed D’Angelo. rolling stone In 2000, I remembered In a recent Instagram clip, he said the video was the brainchild of D’Angelo’s manager, Dominique Trenier. He persuaded him to do so, but upon arriving at the filming location, the singer refused to get out of the car. After being persuaded to take part, Morgan recalled that a female friend who was on set that fateful day described the event as “disgusting” because it was clearly “exploitation”. That presence continued as Thompson explained that D’Angelo does push-ups before gigs to make sure his body matches the image in Untitled.
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Source: BBC Culture – www.bbc.com
