Janelle Monae

janelle monae (who would like to be cassie but never can be, come to think of it, kinda like a tinman who can't get rid of his heart)

\ o_O /

he's pretty good as far as totally inscrutable posters around here go

If you're not left with any of it (i.e., if it all goes over your head), then why not just enjoy the post as a "worthwhile showcase of commendable thought & writing," which you rightfully say it is? There's no need to get caught up in the idea of what it's "supposed to be" with any post, really -- it is what it is, to each reader, and obviously it comes across differently to different individuals.

hahahaha :D

O_O

If you're not left with any of it (i.e., if it all goes over your head), then why not just enjoy the post as a "worthwhile showcase of commendable thought & writing," which you rightfully say it is? There's no need to get caught up in the idea of what it's "supposed to be" with any post, really -- it is what it is, to each reader, and obviously it comes across differently to different individuals.

http://www.myconfinedspace.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/what-you-did-there-i-see-it.thumbnail.jpg

The more I think about it, the more grateful I am that the songs don't feel rigidly stuck in the overarching narrative (whatever it is). A lot of them work just fine as love songs, or psychedelia, or somewhat garbled inspirational socially conscious songs that are enjoyable because they are so great musically. I think I would get really bored if the songs were too busy moving a narrative along. It's kind of funny that her style of songwriting isn't really very narrative at all, much more lyrical (not that that couldn't still be used more rigidly than here to present a narrative).

ayooo this is a mess imho

a hot mess imho

it's hot imho

A Monae, a canal, Ponaema

I love this album so much. Right now the back-to-back pairing of "Come Alive" and "Mushrooms and Roses" is killing me!

"Dance or Die" is so badass.

i'll be your secret santa
do you mind

either what she does at 2:13 in "Come Alive" (and for 20 seconds afterward) is stitched together or she is genuinely scary

im glad the lyrics arent all story-related either. that would be pretty dull and lead to boredom/decreased replay value fast. songs after repeated listens def arent terrible, just not that memorable either. and the afrobeat track with saul is still too early, and also, a bit weak rhythmically/sonically imo, but then i thought the same when common tried to do afrobeat.

i know, that come alive scream thing- for a couple of listens i thought it was some kind of effect with guitar, but now im thinking its genuinely scary. xpost

after watching her live performance on Letterman, I'm pretty sure that's her with some slight effect on her vocal line to beef it up

just watched the letterman performance for the first time. it was good. though she didnt need to quote JB lines near the end. great performance though the song didnt quite conclude how id have liked.

listened to the first 17 songs this morning. i was hoping for a complete mess, or a noble failure, or a case of unfortunate overreach, but this is surprisingly flat and one of the only albums i've heard where i'm on like track 16 and saying to myself "really? that's it?"

she's not a v. developed songwriter and her spot-the-influence approach is boring. but mostly i think the production is really disappointing--this was a great opportunity to make a cool live band record and it just doesn't breathe at all.

i don't even dislike it really, just feeling kinda neutral which is mad unfortunate for an album like this.

^^this is how i felt

preordered this on vinyl, fuck the haters

My issue with the album is that it desperately tries to slam you in the face with immediate awesomeness, but it is actually a slowburner. I thought it was a decent try but nothing particularly special the first few times I played it, but because it was new and enjoyable I kept giving it spins; the more I played it, the more I liked it.

It is rapidly approaching being one of my favorite albums of the year but the steep curve it traversed while settling into that position is going to turn off a large number of people (as evidenced by this thread, IMO). I don't know, maybe it's a little too self-satisfied/inward-looking to properly reach out to people, at least in the way they expect from something under the R&B umbrella? (ie, no one is going to complain about Portishead navel-gazing all over Third because that's kind of why you buy Portishead albums; they are pulling you into their little world and blowing your mind on their terms, whereas most R&B/hip-hop seems to move along the axis of blaring out into your world and taking it over, so maybe something like this that is so determinedly inward-looking with all of these normally outward-facing signifiers is confounding people because the two approaches cancel each other out and you're left with something that comes across more clinical than you think it should be? Kind of making up stuff here but maybe that's part of what's happening when people listen to this?)

well it does feel clinical. but i guess i'm not sure what she thinks she's going for.

ya i was gonna say, this one did take me a few spins to start to dig

I would say that I like this about as much as the last Portishead album.

...

I still like the last Portishead album more.

i guess i should give this some more listens then, my first couple times through it seemed really labored and unfun

I am going to take advantage of the Portishead mention, to say that I keep thinking I would like a lot of trip-hop much more if Janelle Monae were doing the vocals.

I think there's a soundtracky quality to much of it that is intentional, but that might be part of what's turning people off. Maybe it creates a slight sense of removal?

It is an emotion picture, you know.

I wonder how much sense it makes to advertise this album with "Tightrope." That track alone doesn't provide much sense of what the album is like and might not pull in people who would like the album overall; on the other hand, people hoping the whole album would be more along the lines of "Tightrope" could end up disappointed. But would any other track here make a better single? Probably not (though maybe a slightly re-worked radio/single version would work in some cases).

i can't believe i'm saying it but i would support this album being more concept-y

songs I think of as "singles":

Tightrope (duh)
Cold War
Wonderland
Dance or Die
Locked Inside
Oh, Maker
Neon Valley Street

Tightrope feels like it belongs on another album, yes; but it's still far and away my fave track on the album. Maybe it should've been on Big Boi's album instead?

I think it works fine on the ArchAndroid, I just don't think it's representative of the sound and feel of the album overall.

its not even close to my fav track on this album

'say youll go' has really grown on me. i enjoy how straight she sings the body of it. i wouldn't say its restrained, but it could have been ruined by a heavier interpretation.

production could def have been liver or just a bit tougher in general i think. sounds quite pro tooled in places.

usually i hate when titchy gets voodoo--technical--aspie w/ his criticisms but he might be kinda right here

I've listened to this twice. Always starts very exciting but everything starts to blur after a while? I think it's maybe Janelle's technically well-done but emotionally blank vocals that makes this a "challenging" listen for me (at this stage at any rate), much more than the arrangements which mostly seem pretty gregarious and outgoing and fun.

"emotionally blank vocals"

yes. although, what a voice.

Yeah the voice is amazing, but there's no real sense of an actual person behind it (and this has zero to do with the whole android thing). I had the same stumbling block with her earlier material. It reminds me somewhat of Kelis's "Little Suzie", a tune which I always felt I should love more than I did.

"sense of an actual person behind it"

oh, that's usually a lie anyway.

I know, but it's a pretty important lie in R&B!

I don't mean "who is Janelle Monae really", but rather that her vocals usually don't make me care about the singer, the character-of-the-song.

i was gonna say, i get a really strong sense of a person, but more in the "who is janelle monáe really" sense than the emotional-character-of-the-song. god i'm going to have to listen to this again, i have to write a review but as much as i listen to it nothing is sticking AT ALL and it feels more and more like a slog each time

Actually that's a good point, I do come away with a strong sense of "Janelle Monae" herself - something about the whole effect sharply delineates the meta-auteur-behind-the-curtain while leaving any specific characterisation kinda vague... I don't know if this is a bad thing necessarily! It's just a thing perhaps.

It sounds like people would be better off not listening to this so much as an R&B album.