John Legend – Made to Love
2013 · Directed by Daniel Sannwald
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Best comments
1.“Am I weird if I think this music video was sort of beautiful?”
More comments
- 2.“Can't believe Kimbra isn't credited. That is definitely Kimbra!”
- 3.“Songs like this just reaffirm my belief that Kanye West is a genius.”
The story
Woodkid dreamed it up, a fashion photographer shot it, and John Legend sang straight down the barrel. The concept came from Yoann Lemoine, the French director and musician who records as Woodkid, and fashion photographer Daniel Sannwald directed. Legend sings in black and white, close and intense, cut against futuristic, computer-generated imagery of bodies wrapped up in each other – some bare, some covered in paint. Artful, not explicit. Sensual is the polite word.
The song isn't your standard Legend piano ballad either. He wrote the first version with longtime collaborator Dave Tozer, then Kanye West had Da Internz rework the drum pattern, which Legend said really made the song. Kimbra, the New Zealand singer from Gotye's Somebody That I Used to Know, improvised the ghostly scatting in the background, and Tozer liked her first pass so much they kept it as is. The ending swerves into a dark classical coda with strings, timpani, a real choir and opera singer Aude Cardona.
It came out in June 2013 as the second single from Love in the Future, and Chevrolet put it in an Impala ad that debuted during Game 7 of the NBA Finals. Legend said that one felt personal, since he grew up in a Midwestern family of autoworkers. A love song about two people built for each other, selling a car. Detroit approves.
