by Alex Cater

The essence of Janelle Monae’s sound is a heady milkshake of high-end pop, somewhere between the timelessness of Michael Jackson, the eccentricity of Prince, and the classic song standards of Judy Garland. Her music, she says, is a product of the ipod generation, where people’s musical tastes no longer conform solely to one genre but instead take something from all.

The album she is promoting is ArchAndroid a concept album and outlet for her robot inspired alter-ego Cindi Mayweather, an android on the run for committing the crime of falling in love with a human. This escapist narrative to her music is perhaps best understood within the context of her early beginnings. Being brought up in Kansas in a working class family touched by drug addiction she immersed herself in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and The Wizard of Oz.

Even her style –dapper 1930s esque tuxedos, two-tone brogues and of course that unmissable pompadour quiff– is intended (perhaps unsuccessfully) to display solidarity with her working class roots. On the night, inspired by her unique look, some of the more devoted members of the audience have even come dressed as her.

Support act CocknBullkid, fronted by singer Anita Blay, performed with a stripped down band, highlights included One Eye Closed and Hold On To Your Misery. Though they play some good, positive pop music they fail to make much of an impression. We are all waiting for the main act.

Monae’s set does not initially gel with me. A film from her alter-ego the ArchAndroid is projected onto the back of the stage. In it she appears just as on the album sleeve, wearing an Egyptian tinged crown of skyscrapers. The message –high on psychobabble– set the scene for a sci-fi movie rather than a gig and ended with the phrase “you must choose to dance or die.” When the lights came back on, a cloaked Monae appeared onstage accompanied by two similarly attired dancers, who throughout the night rushed on and off the stage for distracting barely noticeable costume changes.

You must choose to dance or die.

I am quite sceptical about backing dancers; to me Bez from the Happy Mondays is more drugs casualty than maraca player. I am also not overly keen on convoluted, intro sequences or concept albums. My reservations, however, are soon dispelled as soon as Monae starts to sing. The first song, the aforementioned Dance Or Die, mixes funk and RnB in a spoken word stomper of a track.

Yet it is not all plain sailing, the sound desk managed to swamp the star performer way low in the mix and took most of the first song to notice the mistake. Her second choice of song is simply baffling, having only just warmed up the crowd she puts us on ice again with a slow number. The whole band traipse of the stage, leaving only her and the guitarist to play us the broadway standard Smile, once popularised by Judy Garland. It’s a classy song and she does it justice, her voice quivering in all the right places, but it would have been better saved till the last quarter of the set and not the first.

With the band back on stage we are treated to a magnificent set without any further hitches. I almost start to get used to the backing dancers, though not quite. Highlights were the swing flavoured Faster, the painfully funky Tightrope and the euphoric Cold War. Surprise song of the night is the dreamy and surreal Wondaland, which is like Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds if it was played by The Super Furry Animals.

There is not much to do other than gush over an artist as focused as Janelle Monae. There is an incredible modesty about her, and not an ounce of the usual diva or rock star self regard.

Dazzled we left the O2 covered in confetti out into the chill spring night, wondering if there was any truth to this android back-story. How else could anyone do all that disco dancing without breaking a sweat? Listening back to the album now, the songs have a new depth having seen them played live. I predict that the next time Monae tours the UK she will sell out stadiums, in the mean time I think my record player needs some bigger speakers.

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Janelle Monae

07 March 2011

Janelle Monae is a pint-sized pop princess. Yesterday, like some strange ecclesiastical ceremony, she converted the congregation of Bristol’s O2 Academy with a sparkling live show.

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