Janelle Monáe The Arch Android released

The Arch Android Janelle Monáe

Released: May 18, 2010 Peak: 17 US, 4 RB, 51 UK, -- CN, 63 AU Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): 0.19 US, 0.06 UK, 0.25 world (includes US and UK) Genre: alternative R&B

Tracks: Song Title [time] (date of single release, chart peaks) Suite II Overture [2:31] Dance or Die (with Saul Williams) [3:12] Faster [3:19] Locked Inside [4:16] Sir Greendown [2:14] Cold War [3:23] (8/8/10, --) Tightrope (with Big Boi) [4:22] (2/11/10, --) Neon Gumbo [1:37] Oh, Maker [3:46] Come Alive (The War of the Roses) [3:22] Mushrooms & Roses [5:42] Suite III Overture [1:41] Neon Valley Street [4:11] Make the Bus (with Of Montreal) [3:19] Wondaland [3:36] 57821 (with Deep Cotton) [3:16] Say You’ll Go [6:01] BabopbyeYa [8:47] Total Running Time: 68:35

Rating: 4.304 out of 5.00 (average of 28 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

Her Early Years She was born Janelle Monáe Robinson in Kansas City, Kansas, in 1985. She learned to sing at a local church and began writing musicals as a teenager. After high school, she moved to New York City to study at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy. She relocated to Atlanta and began writing her own music, self-releasing a demo album in 2003. She appeared on OutKast’s Idlewild album in 2006, after which she was signed to Sean Combs’ Bad Boy label. Metropolis Theme In 2007, Janelle Monáe released Metropolis: Suite I (The Chase), an EP inspired by Fritz Lang’s 1927 silent film classic Metropolis. The Arch Android “continues the series’ fictional tale of a messianic android” WK named Cindy Mayweather sent back in time “to liberate Metropolis from a secret society of oppressors” AM who use time travel as a means to suppress freedom and love. It is “an extravagant 70-minute album involving more imagination, conceptual detail, and stylistic turnabouts than most gatefold prog rock epics.” AM The album “features lyrical themes of love, identity, and self-realization.” WK Monáe said she was inspired by the quotation, “The mediator between the hand and the mind is always the heart.” WK She said the android “represents the mediator between the haves and the have-nots, the minority and the majority” WK and that “her return will mean freedom for the android community.” WK The Songs “A few tracks merely push the album along, and a gaudy Of Montreal collaboration is disruptive, but there are numerous highlights that are vastly dissimilar from one another. ‘Tightrope,’ the biggest standout, is funky soul, all locomotive percussion and lyrical prancing to match: ‘I tip on alligators, and little rattlesnakers / But I’m another flavor, something like a Terminator.’” AM “Just beneath that is the burbling synth pop of ‘Wondaland,’ as playful and rhythmically juicy as Tom Tom Club (‘So inspired, you touch my wires’); the haunted space-folk of ‘57821’ (titled after Monáe’s patient number); and the conjoined ‘Faster’ and ‘Locked Inside,’ packing bristling energy with a new-wave bounce that morphs into a churning type of desperation worthy of Michael Jackson.” AM The Music Monáe said the album encompasses “all the things I love, scores for films like Goldfinger mixed with albums like Stevie Wonder’s Music of My Mind and David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust, along with experimental hip hop influences from albums such as Outkast’s Stankonia.” WK She “might not have much appeal beyond musical theater geeks, sci-fi nerds, and those who like their genres crossed-up, but no one can deny that very few are on the artist’s level. They can sing, sang, and scream like hell, too.” AM

Reviews: AM AllMusic.com review by Andy Kellman WK Wikipedia Related DMDB Links: First posted 9/6/2025.