Janelle Monae

Janelle looks really hot in the short wig.

^^^^^^^

Got to see Monae again a few months ago as a special guest at a Prince aftershow. She's usually a dynamo, and I was hoping she would own it after lackluster Prince as bandleader doing wan covers sans guitar, but this night was a total drag. 3am was not the right time to debut a couple of chill new songs. :(

Not feeling Q.u.e.e.n. at all.

Likewise.

It's not my favorite song ever but it has my favorite line in a song ever right now

BADOULA OBLANGATA

^^ sounded much better sung by a meerkat in The Lion King.

The video def takes it up a notch, but I think it's really good on its own.

It's not my favorite song ever but it has my favorite line in a song ever right now

― Fred by Durst (The Reverend), Saturday, May 4, 2013 7:07 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

which one

hint: he posted it as a giant block of text itt

oh duh

i mean tbh I figured as much

this song is an infinitely better and more valid queer anthem than "Born This Way" could ever hope to be

the booty don't lie, it gets better

I do kind of wish she'd be less coy about her sexuality, but I'm possibly not the one to speak

Pretty much love QUEEN now, best thing she's done by miles

Not as good as Jerk Ribs tho

xp idk dude this song seems v uncoy

prince and miguel!

Monae's work with Miguel will sample the Pixies smash "Where Is My Mind?" mashed up with a funk beat

just saw the QUEEN video <3

RIGHT???

it's hard to stop rebels that time travel

http://home.insightbb.com/~canadianexpatriates/rolleyesbig.gif

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Z_c5aqLe6dg/SwSMLeoOvmI/AAAAAAAAMAA/plcIlsy-k7c/s1600/polly.jpg

y'all!

http://soundcloud.com/pinboard/q-u-e-e-n-p-remix

> OG

agreed, it needed more fun and this helps

nice

I honestly thought at first that you meant "it needed more fun." and that Nate Ruess dropped a verse on it.

noooooooooooooo

yeah, definitely no.

jeez

something quite (dissapointingly) 90s about the song, the video (though maybe less with the video), and the prince remix. no wonder prince wanted to rework it - it sounds like something he would have made in the 90s with the NPG!

lmao totally

maybe, but at least prince's version makes a damn good retro-NPG single

Really wished I liked her...

another new one
https://soundcloud.com/atlanticrecords/janelle-mon-e-dance/

hmmmmmm

that sorta reminds me for some reason of girls aloud's "love machine", and it isn't as good as that song

bet awards performance was incredible, totally commanding. she's always great, but in retrospect i can see how it was v. eager to please, and now she can just take charge of a huge room. def going places.

digging the new video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaMBagakSdM

not really feeling "Dance Apocalyptic" right now but that video is a ton of fun

otoh "Q.U.E.E.N." keeps getting better and better

she is perfect fun

something about monae's "hey kids let's put on a show" manic mode does not appeal to me.

I think she's only overacting in the video, she's not that coke fueled normally.

her vocals are never not bland and manicured though

Moka, i've seen her live four times; every single show she's that hyper in performance. She bumrushed the crowd the first three times, fourth time the audience was to big to do that i think.

seems clear the new one will have the same problem the archandroid did, namely the unsatisfactory disparity between mussed-up scenes from a musical and actually listening to it as a record. even individually i love watching the videos and experiencing the craft and whatnot but can't imagine ever feeling the need to own the songs themselves

i mean i guess i'm saying it "works" artistically (ie it's not a problem problem) but the mode of consumption is more like that of buying a glee soundtrack than yr usual music blah

one is doubtless repeating oneself from upthread

something about monae's "hey kids let's put on a show" manic mode does not appeal to me.

― i didn't even give much of a fuck that you were mod (forksclovetofu),

otm

my only problem with the her theater-kid mode is that it feels like its defensive, like a way of saying "see I gave the black power fist at the end of my performance, but I sort of didn't because it's _acting_". I'm not sure if it's because she doesn't want to commit fully, or because she thinks other people don't want to hear her commit. But like I said a bit upthread, her performance at the BET awards seemed, for the most part, very commanding and sincere.

And there's something problematic about the cross promotion of this stuff that's obviously supposed to have a v. radical undercurrent with e.g. this target marketing campaign. So maybe the performativity is Monae trying to navigate what she can sell.

But you then have a performance like her anarchic Q.U.E.E.N. on 106th and park where she's like the lost animaniac meets P.I.L. and those concerns only go so far, because she's obviously got this very focused vision of what she's doing as an individual performer, and the fact that she uses this high-concepty stuff to get there starts to seem much less important.