Janelle Monáe

• Metropolis: The Chase Suite [Bad Boy, 2008]
• The Electric Lady [Bad Boy/Wondaland, 2013] ***
• Dirty Computer [Atlantic, 2018] A-
• The Age of Pleasure [Wondaland Arts Society/Atlantic, 2023] A-

Consumer Guide Reviews:

Metropolis: The Chase Suite [Bad Boy, 2008]

The Electric Lady [Bad Boy/Wondaland, 2013]
Vocally and compositionally, greatly enhanced by the cameos of the many luminaries who admire her ambition and range ("Givin Em What They Want," "Dance Apocalyptic") ***

Dirty Computer [Atlantic, 2018]
A self-made black woman whose intellectual ambition anchors woke-while-the-world-slept politics and whose moves and style enrapture a majority-female international fanbase, Monáe has long been everything you'd want in a musical savior except a compelling musician. Her mentor Prince was so smitten that on his final album he tried to turn into her. But Monáe's voice has always been too thin and her songwriting too intellectual--until now, when she makes a pass at turning into Prince and gets close. Tracks five-six-seven--"Screwed" with its "You fucked the world up now / We'll fuck it all back down" brag, the raspy-rapped autobio "Django Jane," and the folds-of-your-vagina-to-folds-of-your-brain "Pynk"--are a "1999" for 2018 with lyrics that don't stop don't stop, the apex of an album that's designed to have one. Finally Monáe drops the "android" mask, for me a relief, and comes out as a woman-loving woman, for me no surprise insofar as I'd thought about it at all. But she calls herself "pansexual" as opposed to "gay" or "bi" because she wants it all. Too often prosex albums are shallow. While remaining intellectual, this one is more personal than the android dared. A-

The Age of Pleasure [Wondaland Arts Society/Atlantic, 2023]
Her breakthrough album five years behind her, "fine-as-fuck" cultural heroine bets her iconicity on her pan-sexuality and comes out on top of a crowded field that includes Megan the Stallion, SZA, and Amaarae, none of whom has ever even feinted toward the conscious gravitas she rode in on as an audacious 22-year-old circa 2008. Secret classic: "Water Slide," track 10, by which point most of us have stopped noticing lyrics, which here include "'Cause the water feels fine." Do not make this mistake. And no, it's not a sex song--except insofar as it is. A-