I know I keep banging on about Janelle Monae, but in my opinion she is the most talented performer, and this the best album of 2010. Part of a three piece suite, The ArchAndroid is a hugely diverse, eighteen track album, which seeks to resurrect R&B from its sorry modern state, and remind us that the genre can be full of fantastically accomplished and dynamic rhythm, and truly soul-felt, understated blues. Drawing on hugely wide spread musical influences, from Romantic era classical music to musicals, sci-fi movies to field recordings, Monae’s debut full-length album twists and turns all over the place. When listened to in its entirety, its is actually quite staggering how varied her influences are; one minute its Thin White Duke era Bowie, the next its Carlos Santana style guitars, poppier Misfits tracks or Cher circa “Believe” jumping out from your speakers. That is not to say however, that her work is a simple montage of influences; Monae certainly has her own voice – and a cracking one at that. She has a powerful set of pipes – clear and rounded, with perfectly developed tone, grain and most importantly – faultless delivery. The content that she delivers is also solid. Her lyrics are slick, clever, and actually mean something, and are not simply some kind of fake narrative based around disappointingly shallow concepts of sexual politics/polemics.
Conceptually this album is also strong, both as a whole body of work and within specific songs and sections. There are cute little idiosyncrasies, like the proper, classical style Overture for the first and second parts of the album. The whole concept of the album is its strongest point, however, which is based around the themes of androids, science fiction and most significantly, the film Metropolis. Monae doesn’t simply use these as the basis of her concept album but develops it in an incredibly astute and philosophical fashion, extending the “Other” nature of machines and cyborgs to the Other-ness, the feeling of being different, of being an outsider, which is very universal. Clearly, Monae is incredibly intelligent, wise and savvy. This album has no self-indulgent introspection; there are no dirges or self-pity. The album is upbeat, young and positive throughout, with tunes that have good credentials for boogie-ing on down.
What more need I say? A phenomenally good album, and if you haven’t heard it yet – bloody well shame on you! Do it now. I promise you will find it a composed, futuristic, positive and diverse album. Promise.
See this at HCE: http://t.co/aPi2wKM
