Janelle Monae

Certainly not compared to The Love Below or I Am/Sasha Fierce, which lest we forget had a POST-ROCK track on it.

You mean the Tsunami rip-off?

Has anyone told her there's no fighting in a cold war?

Not to defend all her lyrics, but: wrong.

(Does it make a lot of sense to me the way she's using the phrase? Not really. But still, the point is wrong.)

Certainly not compared to The Love Below or I Am/Sasha Fierce, which lest we forget had a POST-ROCK track on it.

You don't say? (What's the track?)

"Love Theme To Bundy K. Brown" iirc

yeah do not remember any tortoise wibble on that

but tbh i was INCENSED that it's like 11 tracks spread over 2 cds and never listened to it much

"You could say this about anything, though, going back all the way to Jacques Brel and Scott Walker, and forward to, uh... Green Day?"

Oh, cmon. You know what I mean. It's a degree of dramatic showiness, theatrical presentation and general glossy sheen. It's the same issue I have with her live: the shows don't feel organic and every moment is heavily scripted. It's a bit staged and while I don't have anything against that inherently, it's a little chafing for music that's this personal. I hear the McKay thing to the extent that they both engage in that way and it's the element of McKay that I find least interesting as well. McKay's always had the benefit of potentially going batty or absurd; Monae seems more rigid to me.
That said, it's a nice album. Not totally killing me but I'm glad to be listening to it.

you could literally say that about ANYTHING...napalm death...merle haggard...bobby brown...eightball and mjg

would watch 8ball and mjg broadway show

would produce 8ball and mjg broadway show

if we raise enough money from the 8ball and mjg broadway show we can save our teen center from that evil developer that wants to tear it down and build a convenience store!!!

Comin' Out! (hard)

twyla tharp choreo; a lot of leaning from side to side

"Wondaland" is great!

re that atlantic article

reps a tuxedo every day

so she goes around all day shouting "SHOUT OUT TO TUXEDOS" or what?

she rolls up in the club with 50 penguins

fuck the tuxedo tbh

fuxedo

"she reps a tux on the flippy flop"

It's a bit staged and while I don't have anything against that inherently, it's a little chafing for music that's this personal.

This comment is confusing to me, because her songwriting is not personal, in the sense that it's not her singing about how this person left her in Chicago or something like that. The mask and the theatricality are a thread running straight through the work, so I'm not sure why it shouldn't be performed that way as well. (I would agree though that the music is personal in another sense and that she has a distinctive vision.) I can see simply not liking that approach, but I don't see how the staginess of the performance doesn't suit the material.

i guess i find the stageyness of the performance plus the concept a bit cloying and near disingenuous; if she could keep the concept and tone down the razzmatazz, I'd be more inclined to buy into the project rather than being dazzled by the glare. I've said this before, but I blame American Idol for so goddamn much.

And yes, that latter explanation of why i find her songwriting/performance "personal" is my meaning.

re that atlantic article

reps a tuxedo every day

so she goes around all day shouting "SHOUT OUT TO TUXEDOS" or what?

― jonathan blapelbon (J0rdan S.), Thursday, May 20, 2010 5:18 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

haha totally.

that just does not belong in the atlantic. like hearing your parents try out hip hop slang

So the one track no one's really mentioned yet is the one with all the numbers for a title that sounds like Simon & Garfunkel. Does Janelle even sing on it? It's quite a nice track, but I'm not entirely sure what it's doing there.

i'm trying to figure out why i think this album is just intensely, intensely annoying

because ur a hater

for one i think the songwriting is very unexceptional -- and i feel like her voice isn't out in front of the mix? like, for as "full" as this album wants to sound, it feels very 2-D to me, if that makes sense. i feel like i'm listening to the television.

well yeah that too

alright, reading perp's review

Much like fellow sci-fi magpie David Bowie, Monáe sings with the confidence of a star, but is essentially a vocal chameleon who places the needs of her songs ahead of her ego. Her performances can be jaw-dropping-- check out the transition from gentle folk phrasing to showstopping vocal runs on "Oh, Maker" for one example-- but she never gets in the way of her songs, which rely as much on her star power as the remarkable versatility of her band.

this is pretty much what i hate about this album. like, i feel like if vocals are gonna not be in the forefront of your music, then you better have songs that balance 'adventurousness' & hookiness the way that the electirk red album does or you need to be able to carve out an actual, unique niche like ciara ballads ("promise" and post-) or cassie (for better or worse)

& all of that is aside from all the valid criticisms of her tired ass steez

damn the song ft of montreal sounds exactly like an of montreal song

just makes me wanna listen to hissing fauna tho

yeah it is straight outta skeletal lamping

This album is light years ahead of anything Of Montreal has released.

i really hope this doesn't spiral into the pointless argument that it could, but i'll state for the record that you are crazy wrong

I don't quite understand some of the sneering that's going on over the album's crossover audience. This album seems much more intended for an audience that isn't particularly enthusiastic about the current R&B they hear, not to mention that it's not clear it should even be described as an R&B album. Given the list of artists Monae has the most praise for, and especially the inclusion of Lauryn Hill on that list, why would it be noteworthy that this doesn't appeal to someone who really likes Electrik Red or Cassie? This album has more in common with something like Kate Bush's Aerial or Tokyo Jihen's Adult (or Shiina Ringo's failed Sanmon Gossip) than with a lot of the R&B I see getting praised on ILM. (Not pretending to follow the genre, but I do sometimes lurk on threads I don't post to, check out what's being linked to, etc.) I don't feel like I am the crossover audience here.

Why wouldn't people like an album in a genre they don't normally like (especially in its contemporary form) if it does something along the lines of what they do like?

well i think it's fine for someone to be like "i don't dig modern r&b because of x, y and z and i dig this monae album because it's not that" but i don't think you can then turnaround and posit monae as some sort of transcendent pop/r&b figure who is more important or more adventurous than any artist of the past decade or whatever

Okay, that makes some sense. While I can relate to the level of enthusiasm some critics are expressing, even I find stuff like "Janelle Monae redefines music" just a little ridiculous.

"In view of the indubitable artistic brilliance & cultural relevance of 21st century musical luminaries such as Cassie, Ciara, & Electrik Red, Janelle Monáe falls short."

love when the backup singers murmur 'genocide' in 'locked inside'

ok, 2 songs in and I am in total bliss

would be interested in a rev defense of the album

btw this album is currently the 6th higest rated album in metacritic's history

Haha.

I don't quite understand some of the sneering that's going on over the album's crossover audience. This album seems much more intended for an audience that isn't particularly enthusiastic about the current R&B they hear, not to mention that it's not clear it should even be described as an R&B album.

because (a) people who don't like much modern r&b have bad taste in r&b and (b) it creates a dumb implied binary like "man if you're tired of all that shit on the radio, this is r&b done RIGHT!

xp looool

anyway i think "many moons" is an incredible song and she is pretty incredible live (though i thought she was kind of bad by her standards on letterman) - i've only heard "tightrope" and the of montreal song off this new album, the former of which i thought was kinda the inevitable endpoint of her difficult-to-take at times corny steez (i think she's hella talented but i'm not sure how much of it i can take at once) and the latter of which i'm pretty sure kevin barnes just sent her an outtake from his previous album

incredible incredible

because (a) people who don't like much modern r&b have bad taste in r&b and (b) it creates a dumb implied binary like "man if you're tired of all that shit on the radio, this is r&b done RIGHT!

I'm not trying to have good taste in R&B, or to meet someone else's standards of good taste in music in general.

(b) I'm sure there are critics talking that way. My attitude is pretty much "if you're tired of all that shit on the radio," but I wouldn't say the second part. (Though I might say "this is music done right," which I guess would be even worse. Except I don't think this is the only way for it to be done right. I probably wouldn't say the second part. Maybe just: "try this.")

There's a big big audience that's disaffected with mainstream pop music and this album is for them as much as it is for R&B fans of whatever stripe. No amount of cutting edge pop intelectualizing is going to change their minds. (In fact, most of them are never going to see any of it.)

i'm not sure if we're even talking about real people right now, but the last decade or so (even the last five or three years) has been a pretty remarkable time for mainstream r&b, and if you can't recognize that, or which songs/artists/albums have been great over that time period, i'm not going to listen when you say "now this is how you do r&b!!" because you are wrong and have had blinders on, if not just outright bad taste

^^^^