Thursday, April 14, 2011

The ArchAndroid


Janelle Monae's "Tightrope" is a huge success on two levels. For one, it is an awesome dance song. After watching this video, it's hard to believe that this move did not become a national dance craze last year. It's not only a great dance song, but it is also a great metaphor! I have been thinking lately about songs that are about the complicated effect of fame on artists.

This is a common theme, but I first started thinking about it again a few weeks ago when I watched the scene where Jesse Eisenberg rips off Pink Floyd's "Hey You" in The Squid and the Whale. If you've ever listened to The Wall, even just once, you know that album hits you over the head about a musician's inner death from outer fame. A week later I watched the Loretta Lynn biopic Coal Miner's Daughter, where we see Sissy Spacek fall over on stage from the pressures of touring. I also recently heard a cover of Phil Ochs's "Chords of Fame" by Teenage Fanclub, featuring the lyrics, "God help the troubadour / who tries to be a star." So I guess you could say this subject matter was swirling around in my brain when I took another listen to Janelle Monae's "Tightrope" from 2010's The ArchAndroid last week.

Monae's "tightrope" is the ever-shifting line between success and failure, public acclaim and critical flop. Look here:

Some people talk about ya
Like they know all about ya...

When you get elevated
They love it or they hate it
You dance up on them haters
Keep gettin' funky on the scene
While they jumpin' 'round you
They trying to take all of your dreams
But you can't allow it.
Whether you're high or low
You got to tip on the tightrope.


Yes, this song could be interpreted at a more personal level, essentially about not letting haters get you, not letting bastards grind you down, whatever pop reference you want to insert. But considering the shape-shifting nature of her career, and the mind-bending eclecticism of The ArchAndroid album more specifically, it makes sense that Monae would be singing about being an unclassifiable act in a market that likes to pigeonhole its artists, especially its Black female artists. It's rare for an African-American woman to be marketed credibly as a hip-hop or rap artist; most, even if they have talent on the mic as an MC, are pushed into R&B or Soul categories. It seems like Monae just saw that coming and decided she was going to move in all directions at once for this album. Obviously Monae is some kind of genius (not to mention she's giving Erykah Badu a serious run for her money). But I've got to hand it to Sean Combs and Big Boi, too, for following through with the production of something this risky: a sci-fi concept album featuring psychadelic rock, funk, orchestral overtures, mid-90s R&B throwbacks, 1960s folk pastiches, and, yes, hip-hop dance tracks. All from a young female artist very few had heard of before 2010.

The ArchAndroid represents a stylistic tightrope. For sure, Monae is going to be walking her own artistic and commercial tightrope in the years ahead. This video shows she has the moves to do it.

7 comments:

  1. Yes! So glad you reviewed this. Archandroid is definitely a top fiver of last year.

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  2. incredible insight. I had no idea to what the tightrope was referring. I just assumed it was a pop song with a catchy dance move and an awesome video.

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  3. But see, Monae doesn't seem like a "political" artist to me. By that I mean that I just don't see the racial commentary you allude to in her songs. Sure, she's an unclassifiable black female artist, which in itself may be a political act, but I'm not sure how much it's her intention to comment on the system that might relegate her to certain roles. Like when I heard her in concert, she wore a mask for the first part of the show--I think of the whole album as an elaborate directing of attention AWAY from Monae's own identity and the politics involved therein. Abby pointed out that she bills herself as a "medium" (in the persona she sets up), which I feels lends support to my apolitical argument: it's almost as if she doesn't want to be responsible for her own creations.

    Sorry, I've been meaning to post this comment for a while but just got around to it now. Also, I should add that I love Tightrope, in case that wasn't clear.

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  4. Well, you two. Very interesting. Actually, maybe I was not totally clear. Claire, I think your argument makes sense. I actually do not think that Monae is specifically singing about an oppressive system vis-a-vis her identity as a black female artist. I DO think you can make the case that she is singing about how artists can be built up one instant and brought down the next. The peripheral point about her status as an unclassifiable artist in an industry that limits black, female expression -- that's something that came to mind for me that simply adds context to the song.

    I agree, though, that there's really no telling that this type of messaging is the inspiration of the song, or any of her material. And if she's not a political artist, then maybe that in itself is somewhat political. Like: "Here, I am going to make an album that pays homage to traditionally black music AND white music AND it will be a science fiction concept album. These are the things that interest me and that I do, yet they have nothing to do with my racial and gender identity."

    I wonder what black, gay, sci-fi writer Samuel Delany would say about all this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_R._Delany

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  5. well, ACTUALLY, I DID come across the following quote from Delany a while ago when I was doing some research on genre fiction:

    "Only when I began to get it back together...did I realize that I was a "black man, a gay man, a writer"; that these were specific, if complex, categories. As categories, they were social impositions—not essences. They were what had always given me my identity; and an identity was something to be examined, interrogated, analyzed: vigilance and, often, resistance were the conditions of being able to function. [When one claims to be above or outside categories,] one is precisely not in a condition of freedom—but of entrapment. Saying "I am not a part" is very different from saying, "Because I am a part, I will not participate in that manner." The first is delusion. The second is power... ("A Poetry Project Newsletter Interview" 303-4)"

    What he's saying here is that we have to work to expand from within the identity constraints the rest of the world puts on us. I completely agree. And I think Monae is doing exactly that.

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  6. It's a bad sign when I can't tell if we are making the same point or opposite points.

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  7. Yeah, I'm not sure either. I've managed to obfuscate things past the point of comprehension. Hooray!

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