Among the many, many reasons Janelle Monae’s debut full-length The ArchAndroid is noteworthy: It’s the first album released by P. Diddy’s Bad Boy Entertainment to feature Of Montreal. Monae hands over the reigns to guest Kevin Barnes on “Make the Bus,” and while the collaboration could be cynically interpreted as the soul singer’s grab for post-Solange/“Stillness is the Move” indie-rock crossover approval, the pairing isn’t as ungrounded as it might at first seem. Both Barnes and Monae share an unabashed love of David Bowie-style sci-fi epics, and on record both indulge their wildest, geekiest flights of fantasy with childlike abandon.
And to be sure, The ArchAndroid is every bit as esoteric as Of Montreal’s Skeletal Lamping. It’s just a whole lot more accessible, rooted in the poised space-funk of her mentors OutKast, while allowing for uninhibited cabaret, neo-soul and rock ’n’ roll tangents (she’s got the show-stopping voice to pull them all off). The second and third suites in a planned four-part trilogy based on Fritz Lang’s Metropolisthe first suite was Monae’s 2007 The Chase EPthe album follows the continued Asimovian adventures of Monae’s time-traveling cyborg alter-ego Cindi Mayweather, who this time out is greeted as a messiah to a persecuted future society which she must emancipate. “Am I a freak, or just another little weirdo?” she sings as she settles into her role as unlikely savior. “Call me weak, or better yet, you can call me your hero.”
Sci-fi aficionados will fall the hardest for her, but you don't need to follow Monae's deliberately dense narrative to be charmed by her dweeby enthusiasm or swept away by this remarkable pop record.
