Back in 2011, I bought a copy of Janelle Monáe's debut album The ArchAndroid after catching some of her attention-grabbing, limb-shaking Glastonbury set on the TV. A 19-track sci-fi concept album, it took a full year of listening to truly appreciate the full extent of the genius that lay within - namely, some of the most inventive, genre-defining yet also genre-defying pop / R'n'B / soul / jazz / whatever, music ever written. As a multitude of sounds and musical themes and interludes and refrains flowed from the speakers, there was one comparison in both sound and tone that really stuck with me: "This sounds like an album inspired by 'Pure Imagination' from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory."
For anyone who grew up watching that film (and who didn't at least once in their childhood?) it's a remarkable song - not only beautiful, drenched in luscious strings with a soaring melody, but a musical accompaniment to the moment in which you see Wonka's Chocolate Room for the first time - an array of sweet treats, every single one of them edible. Giant gummy bears, candy canes growing on trees, flowering tea cups... And there, right in the middle, a gushing waterfall of warm, velvety chocolate. The Electric Lady, like The ArchAndroid before it, is an album which not only occasionally sounds like 'Pure Imagination', but truly feels like it. It's a veritable candyland, a grand, vibrant, epic, expansive body of work overflowing with a range of flavours and sweet, inventive delights. On first listen, all I could think was: this is audio magic, it's a Wonka invention, it's chocolate you can listen to, so rich and smooth and moreish. Like the Chocolate Room, The Electric Lady is sweet and clever and daring and mad and somewhere you want to spend hours of your life at a time. It's an album to live and breathe in, one that makes you want to taste and try and see and do.
Monáe's music works on a series of levels. Much is made of her sci-fi concepts, her alter-egos, the tuxedos she wears on stage every night, her choices of collaborators and her lack of media sexualisation. And rightly so - first up, her long-running concept both references and places itself amongst classic and contemporary science fiction (Fritz Lang's Metropolis, Blade Runner, The Matrix), encompassing notions of time travel, robotic organisms and dystopian societies. There's a story in there somewhere regarding an android named Cindi Mayweather who has fallen in love with a human and is being hunted by the powers that be, but really these are a cipher for tackling a whole range of contemporary issues and classic science fiction themes. In Monáe's fantasy, Cindi is pop star, artist, lover and agent of freedom, a loose cannon in the system inspiring change in a futuristic society. She may also be The ArchAndroid, a fabled entity destined to free the people from shadowy string-pulling secret society the Great Divide. Monáe is the same thing to popular culture, a rogue entity taking in regimented genres, mediums and notions, chewing them up and spitting them back out as her own beautiful, modern works of art. Her music preaches notions of love, acceptance and equality with themes that have contemporary relevance (the question of what makes android love so different from 'normal' human love, isn't the trickiest metaphor to untangle) but also traditional ties - struggles of race, social stratification and forbidden romance.
These notions don't just emerge in the lyrical content but the music itself, and the genres that Monáe deftly weaves. Soul and R'n'B originated in the slave tradition, an outlet to help deal with the trauma of societal injustice, and were later re-imagined in '60s and '70s Motown records. Monáe recalls The Supremes and Stevie Wonder, singing soulful tales of Cyndi's heartbreak and struggles against a restrictive, destructive system. There are orchestral strings and jazzy horns which bring to mind Gottfried Huppertz's score for Fritz Lang's Metropolis, a major influence on the concept of a literal stratified futuristic dystopian society and a mythical redemptive female android. Synthy funk brings to mind '80s Prince and all the sass and snaking hips that conjures. There are hints of doo-wop and rock'n'roll, conjuring the deification of Elvis in the depiction of Cindi Mayweather as a controversial pop icon. It's all here, combined with '00s sub-bass and contemporary R'n'B production. The album's opening 'Suite IV Electric Overture' even recalls the spaghetti western twangs immortalised by Ennio Morricone.
The Electric Lady is Suites IV and V of Monae's sci-fi opus, which began in her Metropolis EP and continued in 2010's masterpiece The ArchAndroid. The story itself is difficult to follow, continuing the star-crossed romance of Cyndi Mayweather and Anthony Greendown, but also charting Mayweather's rise to prominence as a revolutionary figure. It's decidedly more explicit in certain songs, however much more consistent is the ongoing narrative of female self-empowerment. Monae's music celebrates strong, groundbreaking women such as humanitarian Harriet Tubman, celebrated actress Dorothy Dandridge, and Sally Ride, the first American woman in space. On 'Ghetto Woman' Monáe's own mother is given her own ode, a woman who "even when she thought she couldn't, she carried on". Lead single 'Q.U.E.E.N.' is a mission statement for Monáe's female listeners: "Will you be electric sheep? Electric ladies, will you sleep? Or will you preach?" And she does practice what she preaches - she's never scantily clad ("there's danger when you take off your clothes, all your dreams go down the drain girl", she once sang on 'Sincerely, Jane'), supportive of fellow female artists and intent on continuing to spread messages of strong female figures and gender equality. There are even frequent references to same-sex relationships, the album featuring more mentions of a mysterious 'Mary' than your average Bruce Springsteen song. With the same-sex marriage bill making progress across America, it doesn't seem like a stretch too far to see allusions in 'Sally Ride's refrain: "Wake up, Mary / Have you heard the news? / You've got to wake up, Mary / You've got the right to choose".
All of the above makes Janelle Monáe an exciting, diverse, skilful, clever, well-versed, forward-thinking, visionary artist. But what makes her truly great is that none of that is essential. They're extended footnotes, an expositionary appendix to what's simply an incredible sounding record. Her sci-fi leanings and themes of female empowerment add a huge amount of depth to her music, but strip that all away and you've still got a bunch of the best recorded songs of recent years. The Prince-featuring 'Givin' 'Em What They Love' is the best album opener of 2013 with a killer first line: "I am sharper than a razor, eyes made of lasers, bolder than the truth". It's a supremely confident, smoky strut of a song, primed with mystique, blasting horns and squealing guitars hiding in the wings ready to pounce. Then it's on to 'Q.U.E.E.N.', odd and funky as hell with squawking, shimmering synths, booming bass and a drop-dead amazing rap finale. And just when you think the level of quality can't be sustained, in strides the euphoric 'Electric Lady' with a humongous chorus, gigantic pop hooks ("ooh, shock it, break it, baby, electric lady, electric lady!"), clanging percussion and parping horns that dare you not to throw your arms in the air. And on it continues to Pixies-sampling ballad 'Primetime', then to soul banger 'We Were Rock & Roll', then... It just keeps coming, hit after hit after hit. Even slightly underwhelming second single 'Dance Apocalyptic' shines in context.
Suite V is more mid-tempo, but no less immediately brilliant. In fact, these are some of the least drippy ballads you'll hear all year, ones which will have you reaching for the repeat button rather than fast-forward. 'It's Code' slinks in as this album's equivalent to The ArchAndroid's 'Neon Valley Street', all wah-wah guitars and dreamy backing vocals. 'Victory' and 'Sally Ride' eschew straight-forward melodies for much more interesting ones that surprise anew with every listen, both proving that as well as amazing moves (her legs appear to have a life of their own in live performances), Monáe's got a huge set of pipes. And there in the middle of the mid-tempo soul swooners and blistering ballads is 'Ghetto Woman', a footloose freakout that's a modern re-imagining of '9 to 5' with dazzling, dizzying synths and a bassline that's less walking, more on the constant verge of a kicking all the doors down. When Monáe's rap bursts out of the speakers at the three minute mark, a pure streak of burning fire, it's a standout moment on an album that never lets up - and that is saying something.
The only thing that can even be vaguely considered a shame with The Electric Lady is the lack of a 'BaBopByeYa'-esque closer. The ArchAndroid's epic 10-minute last track saw Monáe break out into full-on cinematic orchestral scores and silky smooth diva jazz, yet another sign that she's destined to do an incredible Bond theme one day. It was a tough nut to crack into, being at the end of a 70-minute double album, but once it clicked it proved an astonishing musical feat that stands as the album's crowning glory. That there isn't a comparative track on The Electric Lady is less a failing of the album than another reminder of just how special The ArchAndroid really is.
Has The Electric Lady taken the crown of Album of the Year? The truth is, it feels like an album that exists outside of 2013, like it's always been there. It's that brilliant. Unlike Lady Gaga, Janelle Monáe doesn't have to spell it out in capital letters that she's written an artistic pop album. She's the antidote to the meaningless word-vomit void of Nicki Minaj, both a throwback and utterly of the here and now, an inspirational, aspirational pop star with something true and creative to say. It feels so rare that an album this visionary, this well-formed, this full of ideas and thoughts and feelings, something so special, comes along. As I reach to give it yet another play, I highly recommend you do the same. Come with me, and you'll see in a world of pure imagination.
Words: Ben Travis
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