Saturday, June 26, 2010

Janelle Monae: Futuristic Soul with a story

Janelle Monae jumped onto my radar lately because of two stellar reviews from the guys at Sound Opinions as well as a 8.5 rating from Pitchfork.com. I had heard a couple of the songs showcased on Sound Opinions, but was not sure. After all the glowing reviews I decided to pick it up. I was pleasantly surprised how much I really did love it. It is such a combination of so many styles of music as well as epic in its story telling. In a nutshell it is about a singer that goes back in time but is replaced by an Archandroid, thus the title of the album. It is much more complicated than that, but I'll let you discover that for yourself in the liner notes. Needless to say, I highly recommend it. My favorite songs are Faster, Cold War, Wondaland and the cool robotic rap of Neon Valley Street. This will definitely be on a lot of peoples top ten lists for the year. It is a creative work of Pop music that takes a while to digest and is that not the best kind?