Janelle Monáe is incapable of making a slight album. The Prince protégé announced herself in 2010 with The ArchAndroid, a concept record inspired by the classic sci-fi film Metropolis. Rap, funk and psychedelic soul gave it an Afrofuturist twist, as did the follow-up, 2013’s The Electric Lady. Then came Dirty Computer in 2018 when Monáe tackled themes of technology and identity. The songs were brighter-sounding and more interested in chart success than before, but the drive and ambition behind them were no less powerful.
The Age of Pleasure is her first album in five years. A side-career starring in films, most recently last year’s whodunnit Glass Onion, has drawn her away from music. But these distractions can’t be blamed for the dispiriting sense of a falling-off in her new songs. Instead the chief problem is Monáe’s inability to make a slight album.
At one level that’s exactly what The Age of Pleasure sets out to be. Its 14 tracks last just over 30 minutes. They have one thing on their mind: the pleasures of the flesh. “Baby, I’m obsessed, get me undressed,” Monáe sings in “Lipstick Lover”, neatly revealing in rhyme where the songs’ obsessions lie. They are upbeat and sunny rather than steamy or intense. Slightness here is treated as a desirable quality, like the buoyant feeling of a glass of champagne.
Monáe brings a maximalist’s mindset to this study in jouissance. Numerous guests turn up, starting with Seun Kuti and his father Fela’s band Egypt 80 on “Float”. Others include Grace Jones, who provides a brief voiceover in French in the snippet track “Ooh La La”, and Ghanaian singer Amaarae, who performs on “The Rush” (her new album is also reviewed this weekend). The intention is to have diasporic black voices ranging from Africa to the Caribbean and the US. The music likewise combines different styles: Afrobeat, reggae, ska, the vogueing beats of ballroom culture.
The songs themselves sound good, a bustling soundscape of horns, flute and strings alongside guitars and drums, and Monáe sings with authority. But they nonetheless feel underpowered, at once repetitive and brief — a set of sketches compared to the scope of her previous work. There’s either too much going on in this album or not enough. Either way, it falls short of her usual standards.
★★☆☆☆
‘The Age of Pleasure’ is released by Wondaland Arts Society/Atlantic Records
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