Doomed

"Doomed" was released as a single on June 27, 2017 on Jagjaguwar and is track nine of Aromanticism; it runs 4:23 as a single and 4:27 on the album tracklist. It was written by Sumney and Matthew Otto, formerly of Majical Cloudz, and produced by the two of them, with Sumney on vocals and Otto on synthesizer, Joshua Willing Halpern engineering, Ben Baptie mixing and Ted Jensen mastering. A near-a cappella falsetto sits over sustained chords with no percussion. Spin's Brian Josephs called it the album's stunner, an aquatic drone unanchored by a drum track, and Treble called it essentially an ambient track that sets his vast vocal range against ebbing waves of synth.

Wikipedia describes it as an existential reflection on mortality and on love and its absence, with a chorus asking whether a person is vital if their heart is idle. Sumney told the New York Times it was the album's thesis, which is why it was the lead single, and told Stereogum it was his second favorite on the album, after "Indulge Me". Pitchfork's Jason King described it as foreclosing the possibility of finding lasting intimacy and love with a partner. Pitchfork ranked it 36th among the best songs of 2017 and Spin 35th.

The video, directed by Allie Avital and released the same day, shows Sumney floating naked in a water tank among a field of tanks; Stereogum called it a tragically resonant visual metaphor about black American isolation, and it was nominated for the 2018 AIM Independent Video of the Year. At his Tiny Desk Concert on November 29, 2017 he opened with it, stretched to about eight minutes. Setlist.fm counts 43 plays, second to "Plastic" (51), including Atlanta on September 12, 2024 and EartH in Hackney on October 15, 2024. Ramin Djawadi's instrumental cover was in Westworld season three, episode three, and the song has been in Grey's Anatomy, Orange Is the New Black, Ted Lasso and Queen & Slim. We could not tell which version our upload is.