Futuristic concept albums, particularly ones concerning a Christ-like android, can either be a real slog to wade through, I'm looking at you Dennis DeYoung, or, in rare cases, the album can transcend the limitations placed upon it by the very fact that it is a concept record and say something relevant through its creativity and the immense talent guiding the songs. I never thought I'd say that about a release from a Sean Combs protege, but Janelle Monae's latest release, The ArchAndroid, takes the paranoia and chilled despair of some distant future and shows that these same feelings have just as much relevance in 2010. She sidesteps any easy classification and genre-skips across these 17 tracks. Comprised of two suites, II and III, The ArchAndroid chronicles the aforementioned android and its journey as it travels from place to place, encountering basic injustice and prejudice, in search of some elusive end. But that is really just the narrative backbone on which these imaginative songs hang. The bitter, but not resigned, confession of "Cold War" makes the case that Monae is a singer who can take the pain and uncertainty of a dark future and make it feel personal to the listener, to make it not some far flung depiction of the future but a concrete reality that we can see. If Monae can be successful in this connected narrative, which also included the first suite on a previous EP, and will end with an as-yet-untitled fourth suite, she will have used the very idea of a concept album and pushed it further than many artists ever thought possible, and have the albums be artistically cohesive. Here's hoping The ArchAndroid finds its way home or at least a place where it can be still.
Tracklisting:
01. Suite II Overture
02. Dance Or Die f/ Saul Williams
03. Faster
04. Locked Inside
05. Sir Greendown
06. Cold War (listen to the mp3 below)
07. Tightrope f/ Big Boi
08. Neon Gumbo
09. Oh, Maker
10. Come Alive (The War of the Roses)
11. Mushrooms & Roses
12. Suite III Overture
13. Neon Valley Street
14. Make the Bus f/ Of Montreal
15. Wondaland
16. 57821 f/ Deep Cotton
17. Say You’ll Go
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