Janelle Monae: Talented, Intelligent, Innovative...But Is She Great?

     Sometimes you run into an artist who is clearly talented, clearly intelligent, is interesting and takes chances….and yet doesn’t necessarily create great music. On one end of this spectrum are artists such as Prince, Frank Zappa, and George Clinton who are all of the above and sometimes create something great but often fall short of that, maybe partly because all of them have been wildly prolific. At the other end of the spectrum are people who fit this description but almost never create anything great. You keep waiting for them to do it. Often the root cause with those folks is they are simply not great songwriters. I was thinking of this as I listened to the new Janelle Monae album “The Electric Lady”. an ambitious futuristic concept album with music ranging from orchestral mood pieces to Prince-like funk to retro pop to dance-pop, hip-hop and retro R & B, with lyrics/storyline revolving around androids (this being the sequel to her first album “The Archandroid”). Before that first album even came out, a whole bunch of people ranging from Big Boi to P. Diddy and scads more were touting Janelle as a prodigy with something truly fresh to say. So expectations were being raised from the git. Before there was music there were photos….Janelle often in a man’s suit-coat and tie, her hair in a quasi-natural-pompadour, clearly announcing that she was not going to conform to any expected categories for a black artist. That in itself is praiseworthy because so many black artists on the pop scene today tend to fall into one of two or three lanes….understandably because the industry—and the culture—has never been particularly kind to black artists who break the assigned mold. Major labels—sadly, often  often at the behest of African-American executives—tend to push black artists in these pre-determined lanes, more so than white artists…maybe feeling the need to play it safe, either because all concerned feel economically precarious or maybe because the alternative black audience is numerically much smaller than the alternative white audience (though perhaps the same size percentage-wize). Bottom line it takes some guts and determination for a young black artist to step outside the lines of expectation being drawn around them. Janelle Monae clearly has such determination. And seemingly the talent to back it up.

       My first glimpse of her came with her performance on national tv—it might have been Letterman—of her song “Tightrope”, which too many was a fun, high-energy take on a James Brown routine. It was tight, well-executed and made an impact, though of course wasn’t totally original but still kinda fresh:

 

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzZnao2fbRQ

 

   Anyway when her first album came out I bought it and was impressed. The music was diverse, the lyrics often abstract and allusive but it didn’t sound pretentious. She held it together pretty good.  I enjoyed listening to it, though I confess that on-rushing life prevented me from really getting deep into it. But my interest was piqued sufficiently so when “The Electric Lady Came” out, I grabbed it (it was subtitled “Suites IV and V”, which is a pop artist’s way of signaling that the work is supposed to be taken seriously; danger, danger when a pop artist is self-consciously serious…only a rare few can bring it off.

 

     The cover presents multiple images of Janelle in different hairstyles, clad in a black and white patterned dress that at first glance suggests the old-style prison garb (before the orange or green jumpsuits of today); her various expressions suggest anxiety, surprise, wariness…and there is a skull to one side.  Inside is a missive addressed to “Dear Listener” allegedly from one Max Stellings, Vice Chancellor of The Palace Of The Dogs Arts Asylum. It is part of the futuristic story-line…..which I have not yet figured out if its supposed to be taken seriously or is just meant to be amusing diversion or if, a la George Clinton, it is supposed to be both.  But on to the music.

 

    The album opens with a beautiful arranged orchestrated “overture” that kicks off “Suite IV”, which comprises the first 10 tunes; real strings are employed, a rarity in these expedient, sample-dominated times. The overture slides into some rather ponderous rock-pop with Prince guesting on guitar and various vocals—making the Prince inspiration in Janelle’s palette explicit. Sonically strong but not a great song, it segues into a plodding rock-edged hip-hop groove with Janelle mixing it up with Erykah Badu; this was the initial “single” but while interesting it fails to ignite. The music is interrupted by a radio dj skit, that recurs throughout the album, much of the patter revolving around androids. Next up is a nice, vibey ballad featuring Miguel….this is the first real song and it grows on you, before transitioning into a sampled bhangra riff that kicks into a very catchy dance tune called “We Were Rock ‘N’ Roll”; I feel the album taking off:

 

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqKP8VzPbAg

 

    The dee jay is back for an interlude that kicks into another catchy, bubbly almost teeny-bop dance-pop. It’s cool but surface…fun!  That melds into a dreaming, slightly bossa acoustic guitar-driven pop tune with strings. Janelle sings in a different voice, very clear and pretty, in the style of 50’s and 60’s pop. The melody is quite pretty; she displays a great melodic sense on this album even if on some cuts the melody isn’t really brought home. But on this cut it is.

 

     Then we have another orchestrated overture and we’re into Suite V. The first tune is a retro R & B ballad, with a distinct Delfonics vibe in the melody and vocal style, with a little Michael Jackson thrown in. Another nice melody but Janelle’s voice isn’t quite up to the demands of this melody in this particular range. Next up is a funky kinda Brazilian feeling dance tune with another very nice melody, which runs into another DJ interlude, in which a caller denounces “robot love” and the dee jay says “how can you know that unless you’ve tried it.” There follows a solid R & B ballad followed by a quite sophisticated pop balled named after the female astronaut Sally Ride, the first woman in space.  Then comes a Latin-tinged mid-tempo groover with smooth vocal and another real nice melody and the suite finishes off with “What An Experience”, a solid pop/r ‘n’ b ballad that kicks into a reggae section, that somehow is less than the sum of its parts.

 

      So what do we have with “The Electric Lady?”  First off, it is a true album, meant to be listened to as a whole—all too rare in these track-oriented times. As such, many tracks function as building blocks for the overall architecture and only a handful of the 19 tracks are impressive on their own. Janelle really presents a better sense of melody than most of what’s on the scene today but only three or four of the tracks are really strong songs. She pulls off the difficult feat of taking many disparate musical elements and making them work together in an unforced way—that’s no small achievement. The album rewards multiple listenings and its growing on me. Janelle Monae is truly an alternative artist who transcends category and hopefully she will be dealt with as such, unlike other black artists such as Laura Mvulu who is written about as if she were an R & B  or “soul” artist even though her music really isn’t primarily R & B.  Janelle represents a growing number of sophisticated black youth of diverse backgrounds who refuse to be ghetto-ized. If her ambition is not yet fully realized she nonetheless has created a work that is head and shoulders above most of what’s coming down the pike these days. The bottom line with any recording is: do you want to listen to it again. I do and I am!