Great news! I was late to the Janelle Monae party, but discovered Metropolis and The ArchAndroid and they are fantastic releases. Although I was a little disappointed in Electric Lady (what was that, 5 years ago?), I'll no doubt be looking forward to this.
Wow! I fell head over heals in love with the ArchAndroid back in 2011, the year after it came out. Metropolis: The Chase Suite is good to me, but really just a taste of what was to come. Electric Lady, now...it’s got a lot of good songs, but I didn’t and don’t like at all how she didn’t continue the plot of ArchAndroid. Yes the tropes are still there, and Cindy is name dropped. The world is there, changed in perspective and characteristics, but still there. But her story doesn’t continue like it should, the emotional weight isn’t there, and you don’t get the best sense of who or what any of the characters on the Electric Lady really are. It’s not even clear if the Electric Lady is Cindy, someone else, or Janelle herself? Which is what it comes down to, for something that claims on the album cover to suites IV and V, there was far too much music that was self referential and of the present day. I get and accept that that’s the music she wanted to make at that moment, but if she couldn’t integrate it into the Metropolis story better, than she shouldn’t have done it at all.
Ok.. so there are some updates.. MONÁEDROID ⚡ Φ Β on Instagram: “#DirtyComputer #JanelleMonae #WondalandRecords #music #newmusic #artwork @nctwin” Pre-order will be available tonight with 2 songs available. Album is 14 songs with "D'Jango Jane" and "Make Me Feel" will be available with pre-order.
I consider Janelle Monae to be one of the greatest talents of our time. Yes, you can see a lot of her influences, but she has so much of herself as well. Metropolis was an amazing debut for an artist and her vocals are stunning. Archandroid captured a lot of people, even if they weren't introduced to the concept through the previous. The Electric Lady is one of my favorite albums from the last ten year, quality to quality. The Cindy Mayweather story is so engaging. I look forward to it's final chapter.
I ADORE Janelle. I am super excited for anything she does. I am really in need of revisiting her music. This gives me more incentive!
I saw her on a White House PBS special with all kind of diva type singers. I had never heard of her. She blew me away. So cool. Kind of James Brown thing with the dancing and singing. Also her look. Just a whole package. Got a couple of records. She's great. Can't wait for the new record.
Someone commented that the success of Black Panther can be partly attributed to Monae's reinvigoration of Afro-futurism.
New song titles: “Pynk”, “Screwed”, “Classic Life”. Alan Ferguson and Emma Westenberg worked on at least a few videos.
Seeing her in an ep. of Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams and also the rocket science Hidden Figures flick, it seems we got us a Woman Who Fell To Earth, a Jimi Bowie. Time to party like it's 2099
Very psyched about this, too. I prefer Electric Lady (tho those brief spoken interludes that were originally artsy have become a bit annoying and things I skip over now) to ArchAndroid. Love, love, love her voice.
She's utterly brilliant live, although a nightmare to shoot; her and the band all dress in black and white, their instruments are black and white and the stage set is black and white, it makes metering a bit of a trial, to say the least! Thank God for raw files and Photoshop
Wasn't a big fan of The Electric Lady, but love her first two releases. I'm mostly worried about how much energy acting and her other pursuits take from her music.