Music Review: Janelle Monae, “The ArchAndroid”
Rating: 97
In its sprawl, depth and miraculous facility with all things pop, Janelle Monae’s “The ArchAndroid” recalls Prince’s mid-career masterpiece “Sign ‘O’ the Times,” and it is only her first full-length album. Monae possesses an elastic voice and a brain to match — she can sing jump-blues and funk with as much ease as she brings to madrigals, late-‘60s pop and a stunning disco-soul song that doesn’t just evoke Michael Jackson’s “Rock With You,” but is its equal.
Held together by a loose story about the rise of 28th century droid Cindi Mayweather, “The ArchAndroid” never suffers from oppressive concept or overreach — its 18 songs can survive and thrive on their own. The set begins with a remarkable trio of uptempo soul-pop rave-ups, “Dance or Die,” “Faster” and the aforementioned “Locked Inside,” which is so evocative of Jackson’s classic period it could pass for a Quincy Jones-produced outtake. The first single, “Tightrope,” floats effortlessly on tight funk riffs and Monae’s ultra-sassy soul shouting before the singer downshifts for “Oh, Maker,” a superb ballad in which Monae displays Mariah Carey-style range with Marvin Gaye-style intelligence.
Kudos to Monae for ensuring that “The ArchAndroid” never inflicts sonic whiplash: her box of tricks is packed with incongruous styles — she even collaborates with Of Montreal on “Make the Bus” — but the songs transition beautifully. By the second half, she is quoting seamlessly from Claude Debussy’s “Claire De Lune” on “Say You’ll Go” and engaging in bright, irresistible electro-pop (“Wondaland”) before closing “The ArchAndroid” with “Babopbye Ya,” an 8-minute orchestral swing opus. Unless the heavens open up with something world-saving, “The ArchAndroid” is the must-have pop album of 2010.
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Comments
I got both this and the Metropolis Suite 1 album, and am waiting until I can spend some time with it.
“Tightrope” is a world-class single that ranks up there with “Hey-Ya,” “Crazy,” and “Multiply” in the pantheon of recent tracks that definitively claim a certain time as its own. I just hope everyone else catches on to it.
At the same time, I hope that she never loses her slightly geeky pretention and finishes this ambitious project.
BTW, the restored cut of “Metropolis” is showing at this year’s deadCENTER Film Festival. I’m considering bringing my headphones and iPod to see if there’s a “Dark Side of the Rainbow” thing going on there. 
Great review! The album is truly phenomenal. The most ambitious work from a Female since forever! The album gets 100% from me even though i don’t like Make the Bus.