Hit that drink one more time and spin that track again, because there’s a musical genius speaking through Janelle Monáe’s album The Electric Lady.
She’s a genre all her own, like the Beatles, James Brown, Aretha Franklin and Michael Jackson. An artist, like those listed, who not only have felt the soul of music but made us feel it too.
Janelle Monáe has reproduced the idea of a conceptual album (which just means, “all musical or lyrical ideas contribute to a single overall theme or unified story.” Thanks, Wikipedia). Other examples of conceptual albums would be Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, Willie Nelson’s Red Headed Stranger, Green Day’s American Idiot, and Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On.
“Janelle Monáe’s concept began with Suite I of a IV-suite series in 2007’s Metropolis: The Chase Suite. There, Ms. Monáe was an ‘alien from outer space,’ inhabiting the persona of Cindi Mayweather, female android #57821 living in the year 2719. Mayweather falls in love with a human named Anthony Greendown,” said Quentin B. Huff, writer for Pop Matters review.
“Janelle Monáe’s fictional world of 2719 owes a few nods to Fritz Lang’s 1927 sci-fi dystopian film, Metropolis.”
Her style in the album isn’t limited to one genre or tempo or sound or time period. She addresses class, race, slavery, isolation, love and others in a theatrical soul with deep lyrics and realism.
“Musically, she’s a live-wire, a genre-hopper who touches R&B and progressive rock with as much verve as she handles jazz, cabaret, rap, doo-wop and disco. She’s chic with a rockabilly lean, smart yet fun, and a gleeful student of Pink Floyd, Prince, Stevie Wonder, Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock,” Huff said.
She has attempted an impressive feat that many high-profile artists wouldn’t dare try. And what unbelievable is she’s receiving half the reaction she deserves from the public. Songs like, “Dance Apocalyptic,” “Primetime” ft Miguel, “Givin Em What They Love” featuring Prince, and “What an Experience” resound different genres, yet they coexist on one album.
This is the part where you say, “how does she do that?” Well, she achieves it through her recording label in Atlanta that can provide the recording freedom every artist desires, but not a spot-on mainstream radio (that establishes public recognition for an artist). Regardless, Monáe stays loyal to the label and keeps the pure passion to produce new wave music.
In her song “What An Experience,” she says that “the world’s just made to fade, and all the parties someday blow away, but the memories come home; it’s funny how they come back with a song.”
The next half hour or so of the album is engaging and eclectic with features from Prince, Miguel, Solange and Erykah Badu. And she spits lyrics in these tracks that shame anything you’re hearing lyrically on mainstream hip hop radio.
Granted, I’ll admit, her music is overwhelming on spot. So, I advise you select a few song titles that appeal to you and listen to the whole song, twice. It’s time you see humanity through an inhuman perspective.
Spotfreakinon.
Thankyoufreakinmuch.