Woove staff writer Stu Ruiz reviews Janelle Monáe's first full-length album, The ArchAndroid (Suites II and III). How tasty!

A lot has happened since Janelle Monáe released her debut EP, Metropolis in 2007. Less than a year after the EP came out she was picked up by Sean Diddy’s Bad Boy Records, had her debut re-released, and was given the keys to a high-end studio in order to craft her debut LP, The ArchAndroid.   Containing parts two and three of her four-part Metropolis storyline (the EP represented part one), her new album continues the singer/songwriter’s funky R&B sound earlier achieved on Metropolis while branching out both musically and conceptually.  The ArchAndroid’s story line serves as an excellent hook; there’s certainly no confusing Monae with any other singer on the scene, but it also serves a purpose.  Namely the concept pulls all of the genre experiments, off-beat lyrics, and cinematic soundscapes into a unified whole and is pulled off with conviction.  I’m still uncertain whether Monáe is a Musical Theatre student from Kansas or a human from the year 2719 with an Android Doppleganger who is the savior of the future.  What makes this album so stunning though, isn’t the concept but the music within, an accomplishment regardless of the high-brow ideas fueling them.

Musically, The ArchAndroid is a melting pot of about as many genres as you can name.  Aside from the obvious R&B and funk influences, elements of hip-hop, rock, folk, pop, indie, and orchestral all show their faces.  What’s impressive, though, isn’t how many styles the group combines, but how well they’ve been stirred into more or less a single sound, which makes it especially hard to draw comparisons to other acts.   For those intent on comparisons, however, the sound could probably be described thusly:  Imagine if an early-70s era George Clinton kidnaps a teen age Michael Jackson, jumps into a spaceship-time machine, stops in the 80s to recruit Prince and Quincy Jones, and lands in the present day where the group becomes obsessed with OuKast and melds minds with Erykah Badu.  Or something along those lines.

As a pop album, The ArchAndroid is certainly a success.  The songs are catchy, more than a handful of them being dance floor worthy, while containing just enough uplifting lyrical nuggets to inspire the masses.   What makes the album such an accomplishment, however, is the depth that each song offers, due mostly to the masterful arrangements of relatively new producers Nate “Rocket” Wonder and Chuck Lightning.  In any given song one can pick out various instruments weaving in and out, offering melody, counter-melody, harmony, and rhythmic flourishes that may not reveal themselves for dozens of detailed listens.  Take the song “Faster” as an example, which has an ascending keyboard melody countered with staccato piano chords in the other ear, layered over upper register funky guitar chords and fleshed out with sung harmonies, all backing a nimble vocal line from Monae spouting the line “you hide your chainsaw deep in kisses/that don’t make it quiet” and powered by a propulsive backbeat.

Every track on this album rewards the careful listener for this kind of musical dissection, and the tracks have such a solid grasp of dynamics that it can often be done many times in the same song, as sections blend into one another, drop off into musical trap doors, and new parts are brought in and taken away.  Bringing together so many different performances into such organic feeling songs is certainly a feat when considering that, aside from a few consistent collaborators, there’s not really a backing band to speak of.  Among those consistent collaborators is Kelindo Parker.  Monáe’s chemistry with Kelindo is apparent throughout, and although the tandem isn’t quite up to a Clinton/Eddie Hazel level, his penchant for funk grooves, exuberant lead playing and lithe chordal movements add a great deal to the compositions. 

The storyline can be somewhat hard to follow, but what’s important here isn’t plot, but atmosphere.  The lyrics never get too caught up into Science Fiction, but contain just enough imagery and strange robot references that the theme is kept throughout the album’s 18 songs.  The two suites are opened with orchestral pieces, and in what might be a first in pop music, they don’t sound like tacked on attempts at pompous grandiosity.  Instead the compositions set a stage and a headspace, and while sometimes dangerously reminiscent of various movie scores, are over soon enough to not to get in the way of the actual songs. 

More than anything, however, these songs are tied together by some terrific performances from Janelle Monáe.  She slinks through opener “Dance or Die,” weaves in and out of “Faster,” raps through “Tightrope,” shows off her croon on “Mushrooms and Roses,” and jumps the shark on “Make the Bus.”  The latter song sounds like the glam-pop product of an infinitely gender-confused love child of Queen’s Freddie Mercury and David Bowie.  It seems like an absolute mess at first, and for the most part it is, but by the time the melodies start to make sense the utter inanity becomes rather endearing.  It also doesn’t hurt that the track seamlessly blends into album highlight “Wondaland.”

Even considering all the excellent songs and high concept story found within, what fuels a great deal of my excitement for this album is the timing.  Not since OutKast had multiple hits on the airwaves has music of such high quality and vivid imagination had such a good opportunity to break into the pop scene.  “Tightrope” might be the funkiest song to hit the (relative) mainstream since B.O.B. (the OutKast song, not the rapper) and aside from a lack of rough sex references and dry dance beats, “Cold War” wouldn’t sound terribly out of place next to a Lady Gaga song on pop radio. That’s not to say Monáe ever panders to make her music digestible. “Cold War” has buckets more soul than anything you’ll hear in the Top 40, but music that pairs widely strong melodies with funky beats doesn’t really go out of style.    

Rarely does an artist execute a vision with such imagination, fearlessness, and unbridled success as Monae and her team does here.   Even rarer does an artist accomplish this on their very first full length.   This is the kind of album whose entirety sucks you in, and whose songs appeal by themselves alone, but when put together create an experience to be taken in, one to be enjoyed and analyzed many times over.  A stunning example of pop music as art, The ArchAndroid is not to be missed.