Mark Ronson Unearths Musical Hermit D’Angelo For “Glass Mountain Trust”

Becky Bain | September 23, 2010 3:43 pm

Mark Ronson deserves a giant pat on the back for somehow nabbing reclusive R&B crooner D’Angelo for “Glass Mountain Trust”, a track that appears on Mark Ronson & The Business INTL’s album Record Collection, out on Tuesday. Was the tune worth D’Angelo crawling out from whatever rock he was laying (shirtless) under the last decade? Jump below to listen.

First of all, we all remember D’Angelo, yes?

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Yep, that’s the one. Okay, the R&B singer did more than pretend he was getting some knee-supported lovin’ from a clandestine sweetie in a music video.  The abdominal wonder’s last album, Voodoo, debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200, and was a critical success to boot. But that was a decade ago, and since then, he’s stayed more or less quiet from the music scene (a decision that most likely has something to do with a string of arrests connected to a drug addiction).

In the last ten years, we’ve had mini D’Angelinos pop up all over the place, from Chris Brown to Trey Songz, as well as a slew of other R&B hotties who can barely contain their hairless, sweaty chests while crooning about lewd bedroom antics. So we can’t say we’ve missed his presence all that much.

But now D’Man is back! Was it worth the wait? Listen below and tell us:

[wpaudio url=”//static.idolator.com/uploads/2010/09/mark_ronson_and_the_business_intl-glass_mountain_trust_featuring_dangelo.mp3″ text=”Mark Ronson & The Business INTL feat. D’Angelo – Glass Mountain Trust” dl=”0″] Anyone else think he sounds like he’s trying to mimic Andre 3000 on this spacey, synth-assisted track? D’Angelo’s gnarly snarl (which at times breaks to become a high-pitched nasal falsetto) takes all the melody out of what would otherwise be a dreamy tune.

We’re not exactly sure what made Ronson say “Let’s get that guy who hasn’t been around since 2000!” and collaborate with him on this song, but we think Ronson could have gone with a more polished singer. Buy hey, he still sounds better than Amy Winehouse and Mark’s still working with her, Twitter feud aside.

As far as his upcoming album, James River, is concerned, D’Angelo only tells Rolling Stone that “we’re working on it.” Well, that’s a start.

Stream Record Collection right now over at MySpace.

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