Categories : Jazz + Blues, Music Reviews, Rap + Hip-Hop, Rock + Pop.
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Rating: 5 / 5 Reviewer: Garth Paulson |
If there’s any fairness in the world, Janelle Monáe’s debut full-length The Archandroid will rocket up the charts and stay there for months, giving hope to doom-obsessed record label executives as it becomes the type of ubiquitous summer smash that doesn’t happen anymore. It’s unlikely to happen, but The Archandroid is such singular masterpiece of realized ambition, singular personality and glorious pop song craft that Monáe deserves nothing less than soaring to pop the hallowed halls of pop royalty, beloved by the teeming masses, top 40 radio and nerdy shut in with elaborate methods for organizing their burdensome record collections alike.
What does The Archandroid do to deserve such effusive praise? Well, everything really. After a brief musical overture to usher in the second suite of Monáe’s ongoing Metropolis series about her futuristic, android alter-ego Cindy Mayweather—the first installment was released on the 2007 EP Metropolis: Suite I (The Chase)—the album opens with Monáe rapping over stuttering percussion and sparkling synth pools on ‘Dance or Die.’ Things then seamlessly shift in the upbeat jive of ‘Faster,’ where Monáe’s light vocals partake in a sprint with the song’s effortlessly breezy guitar line. ‘Faster’ itself merges into the disco funk of ‘Locked Inside,’ Monáe’s voice now taking on a syrupy thickness. Next up is ‘Sir Greendown,’ a slinky cabaret number where Monáe sounds every bit a sultry star holding sway over a smoky bar in the ‘50s.
The album continues in a similarly genre-bending manner, mushing soul, R&B, rock, folk, hip hop, pyschedilia and indie rock into a delectable smorgasbord that’s as retro leaning as it is next level. What’s most surprising about The Archandroid though is how well it all holds together, despite its constant sonic shifts. While Monáe’s band certainly deserves credit for its ability to pull off anything that she asks of them, it’s Monáe herself that’s at the heart of the album’s surprising coherence. Quite simply she dominates the whole thing, taking over songs like a force of nature; daring listeners not to follow her incredibly powerful delivery and completely beguiling personality down its myriad paths.
It’s that personality that really shines through in the end. When she performed “Tightrope” on Late Night with David Letterman recently it nearly brought tears to my eyes, not because of any significant emotional resonance with the song, but because of how fully confident and how fiercely individual the performance was. With her two-tone tuxedo, outrageous pompadour and spaghetti-legged dancing she commandingly announced herself as no one but herself and happened to completely slay while doing so.
When first listening to The Archandroid it’s tempting to dub Monáe the next Lauryn Hill, Beyonce, Eykah Badu, Tina Turner or what have you—and there are certainly elements of each in her style—but this process quickly grows unsatisfactory as it becomes overwhelmingly obvious that she is the next no one. She is the current Janelle Monáe and right now I can think of no higher praise than that.
