Our next spotlight in our new “Thursday, What A Concept” series is on number 21 on The List, submitted by @dan.

Similar to Bowie’s Outside album (as noted in the previous TWAC post), Janelle Monáe’s The ArchAndroid is but one of an ambitiously planned yet unfinished cycle of concept albums. Unlike with Bowie’s cycle, however, we have thankfully been gifted more than one part for Monáe’s cycle – five of seven to date, in fact, plus some change.

While Monáe’s 2007 debut EP, Metropolis: The Chase Suite, is considered the official beginning of the cycle, its roots can be found in Monáe’s 2003 demo album, The Audition (also called Metropolis: Point Zero), via two tracks. The setting – inspired by the silent film of the same name – as well as the general storyline and themes/concepts that are found in the releases that follow, are set out in “Metropolis”:

Population, ten zillion and six
Where signs say, “Welcome to the Star Core Metropolis”
Me, I live on the wired side of town
Reaching and searching for a space called paradise found…

And it’s a common thought
That wired folk can be sold and bought
That we have no feelings, no memories or minds
That we’re bionic strumpets, only worth a dime
To some it’s a surprise when I smile
And when I hold your hand
They say, “How can a wired thing understand?
Love is too deep, it’s too wide to feel
When your soul is a button and your foot glows in heels”…

Hey, Anthony Greendown from Sector Nine…
The love when I hold your hand
I wanna take you
Take you with me to another land

In the next track, “Cindi”, Monáe briefly introduces Cindi as their alter ago, who we will then follow in the Metropolis cycle: a time-travelling android named Cindi Mayweather, who is sentenced to disassembly because she fell in love with a human (the Anthony Greendown mentioned above). In running from the bounty hunters and seeming to die and being reincarnated at least once, Cindi transforms into something of a messianic figure for other oppressed androids, known as the ArchAndroid.

Following the brief 17-minute Metropolis: The Chase Suite (suite I of the cycle), The ArchAndroid (suites II and III of the cycle) has over a hour of room to really get into the story, which is then continued in the 2013 The Electric Lady (suites IV and V), also over an hour long. So, with that much material, it’s unsurprising that a lot could be said about the concept behind The ArchAndroid and its companion albums. The cycle is an absolutely brilliant, multi-layered piece of Afrofuturistic sci-fi that asks for (and deserves) repeated listening sessions. And, in fact, as quickly found in doing a brief search, many blog posts, articles, and at least a few academic papers have been devoted to the Metropolis/Cindi Mayweather cycle; The ArchAndroid in particular has a 33 1/3 volume published on it, and, as heard via discussion on Mastodon, has even been included in the curriculum for at least one course on contemporary Black literature. So, if you want to dig into the storyline more, there’s a lot out there to peruse.

As for the music? Even if you weren’t paying attention to the lyrics and story at all, this album takes you places. The breadth of styles/genres covered in The ArchAndroid (and the others in the cycle) – and, obviously, Monáe’s talent – is simply staggering. Monáe also uses a performance device that I really love in the work of other musical experimenters such as Bowie (and, to a lesser extent, Prince), that of using multiple distinct singing voices, either to indicate a different character or simply to match the style of the song – e.g., compare the dreamy classic musical/cinematic-type voice in “Sir Greendown” and “BaBopBye Ya” vs. what might be considered Monáe’s more “normal” voice in “Cold War” vs. the robotic/computery voice in “Wondaland” vs. the ethereal/folk tones in “57821” (The Chase Suite EP also has some operatic stuff going on in the glorious but short “Cybertronic Purgatory”). There are some fun cameos as well, including Saul Williams and Big Boi (of Outkast).

So, musically, you can’t go wrong with just listening to The ArchAndroid, but my suggestion would be to start from the beginning and listen to everything we have so far of the cycle. At least make sure you also get to what is currently the last entry in the cycle, The Electric Lady, both to hear the Prince cameo and the really fun radio interludes (…not to mention appearances by Erykah Badu, and Solange, et al.). It’s been over 10 years since The Electric Lady, but there’s still hope we’ll get the final instalments of this great cycle.

The ArchAndroid – what a concept!

• Songlink: Janelle Monáe – The ArchAndroid
• Discogs: Janelle Monáe – The ArchAndroid

https://1001otheralbums.com/2024/06/27/thursday-what-a-concept-janelle-monae-the-archandroid-2010-us/