Graham Reid | | 1 min read
When compiling last year's edition of JB Hi-Fi Guide to Essential Vinyl (our third such volume), many of the choices were easy, like Janelle Monae's Dirty Computer of 2018.
We said it was “a complex amalgam of funk, rap, futuristic pop, soul, hip-hop, electronica and more, but moulded into memorable songs it seems to follow a narrative arc of marginalisation and socio-cultural sexual repression to reconciliation and optimism”.
We concluded “could have been messy but it's often very beautiful, enjoyably funky and coherent. Pop is the winner on the day.”
Monae is one of the smartest artists at work today and – as we've noted – doesn't limit herself to genre. She also thinks big and wide, engages with politics and social issues, has a small but significant acting career and writes concept albums.
This fourth album is as impressive, musically wide-ranging and as interesting as its predecessors . . . but it's also more easy to like immediately for its sensuality and dance qualities.
It's pop but not frothy, soul without the cliches or an epidemic of melisma, songs finished rather than just suggested.
As always there is a veritable battalion of co-writers and producers but Monae manages to keep everything from being over-wrought and embellished into excess.
Even the guest appearance by Grace Jones (in French) is artfully constrained into just 35 seconds of Oooh La La over a signature Jones-like groove, as are Seun Kuti and the Egypt 80s horns on their two appearances.
Yes, there are moments of AutoTune (which she hardly needs) and perhaps the overt and repeated sexuality will grate with some. But everywhere here Janelle Monae confirms what we know: she's (still) one of the smartest artists at work today.
And here she's at play.
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You can hear this album at Spotify here
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