Review: Janelle Monae – The Archandroid

I feel a little bit sorry for Janelle Monae. She released her debut EP -- Metropolis Suite I: The Chase -- in 2007 and won attention and praise for her unique blend of pop, R&B funk, and conceptual tomfoolery. Raves followed her live sets at major festivals. Yet, for nearly three years, no new music. She seemed perpetually a buzz-worthy artist as her album suffered delays. Outside that bubble, all of pop music -- led by Lady Gaga’s videos (if not her music) and MIA -- got weirder. The initial inventiveness of Metropolis seemed to dull with every far-out fashion statement or world-mixing song.

Now it’s 2010, and Monae has finally released her first full-length, The Archandroid. Covering the next two suites in her four suite plan, the album fully realizes her ambitions and never seems to have been compromised for sales. As far as debut LPs go, this is one of the denser, most ambitious of recent years, especially from an artist on a major label (shout-out to Aftermath and Interscope). It covers a huge range of styles and influences while rarely sacrificing melody and frequently surprising over a probably too-long duration. If it’s too long, it’s worth it if she takes another 3 years to deliver part 4.

Now the part where I feel bad: this album will likely not be a major smash, despite being more forward-thinking, risk-taking and plain better than anything Lady Gaga has done to date. Whether she’s blending African rhythms with Prince-like sped-up vocals, as she does on “Faster,” following that with straight-up disco on “Locked Inside,” or announcing each suite with an “Overture,” she’s arresting and assured. All the elements feel new in this combination as she effortlessly hops and skips from style to style. It’s a blessing and a curse; this music is arresting, but not as immediately memorable as, say, something the Black Eyed Peas might come up with. At the same time, its breadth and virtuosity is immediately admirable. It’s the rare thing nowadays, to have an album as fully stuck in the album format as this.

There’s a story here, but it’s not necessary to enjoy the disc. In fact, maybe if she ditched the story some of the more meandering tracks could be lopped off. Or, maybe having the story lends such a far-flung range of material some semblance of cohesion. I don’t know; I’m not the artist. Everything grooves so effortlessly that it’s intoxicating on first listen. It’s commendable that Bad Boy let Monae indulge like this -- 20 tracks, maybe none would be a great single, some lasting less than two minutes, the closing two taking up over 14 minutes total. For its range alone, it should be heard by everybody, if only to give any future rookie label signees something to think about.

Janelle Monae:

• Official Site
• MySpace
• Last.fm
• Twitter

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About the Author

Jere is not from Chicago. Nor is he from Parts Unknown. But he sure loves to hear things. Follow him on Twitter!

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