JANELLE MONÁE

Main chronology:

• 2010: The ArchAndroid

THE ARCHANDROID

Suite II 1) Suite II Overture; 2) Dance or Die (feat. Saul Williams); 3) Faster; 4) Locked Inside; 5) Sir Greendown; 6) Cold War; 7) Tightrope (feat. Big Boi); 8) Neon Gumbo; 9) Oh, Maker; 10) Come Alive (The War of the Roses); 11) Mushrooms & Roses; Suite III 12) Suite III Overture; 13) Neon Valley Street; 14) Make the Bus (feat. Of Montreal); 15) Wondaland; 16) 57821 (feat. Deep Cotton); 17) Say You'll Go; 18) BabopbyeYa

Ambitious, borderless, shamelessy bombastic and wielded by a magician with the charisma to pull off such a hefty concoction into an ecstatic thrill ride.

It's astounding that The ArchAndroid is a debut album. Many debut albums come with tidal waves of ambition, but very few with the kind of pitch-perfect professionalism that Monáe uses to bring her wild dreams into reality. And that it's not just a genre-blending extravagant adventure bouncing from hip-hop and soul to indie disco floor-fillers and revved up rock guitars is wild in itself, but it's all that and a concept album about androids, time travels, futuristic messiahs and forbidden love - and that it's handled without any of that getting out of hand? Artists would normally release albums like this 3-4 albums down the line to their career once they've had their uncertain ignition out of the way and have access to ways to widen their scopes, but Janelle Monáe clearly lives in a different reality to the rest of us.

I don't mean to blow The ArchAndroid out of proportion; you can see from the rating above that it's a great album but not one I'd hold in such a great pedestal that I'd melt into a puddle of superlatives when talking about it. But it is an incredibly impressive way to not just kick off your artistic journey with (beyond the preceding proof-of-concept EP), but also just as an album in itself and how Monáe pulls off her grand fantasies with it. It's remarkable just how tight The ArchAndroid is all-around even though it could easily explode in her hands any given twist and turn. The sprawling 18-song tracklist gives the immediate impression of padding but there's rarely a minute wasted, with only one genuine interlude ("Neon Gumbo") beyond the two overtures (which hold up meaningfully as the chapter bookends in the story) and an impressive level of quality control given to the whole of the record rather than toploading it with the hits. Monáe also balances the concept really well: it's an obvious and paper thin allegory for Monáe's own cultural experiences as a queer black woman in the mess that is USA and thus full of personal weight behind the words, but she pays enough reverence to the universe she's creating with her story of the rise of the android rebel/messiah Cindy Mayweather and her trials and tribulations that the concept doesn't feel like just superfluous window dressing. Every time you think the album is starting to run out of tricks and the cracks are bound to appear soon, Monáe bounces back with something fresh musically or lyrically.

The concept also doesn't outweigh the music and if you were to ignore all the additional flair that Monáe fills the The ArchAndroid with, the success the album bears is all down to just how vivid its songs are - and how magnetic Monáe herself is as a performer, throwing all of herself into each and every moment with theatricality and personality, selling every emotion on the spectrum. That's especially apparent with the Suite II half which spends its time exuberantly bouncing all over the place, and while both halves rarely miss a beat it'd be hard to argue that the first segment isn't the more exciting one because of the way it navigates between so many different ideas with such a rapid pace that it's hard not to be enthralled by it. It also has the big hits, most of which continue to define Monáe: the urgent and emotionally raw "Cold War" breaks the fourth wall completely as Monáe directly stares down at the listener with the faintest hints of the Mayweather façade over her, and to this day it's my favourite thing that Monáe has ever committed to tape and I'm not alone thinking that, while "Tightrope" is the lightning flash that came out of nowhere back in the day and instantly blinded the blogosphere audiences with its irreverent joy and charm, and if you were to call it Monáe's signature song I'd be OK with that even if I disagreed. The others aren't too far away either with the rowdy nightlife hullabaloo of "Come Alive", the thrillingly bursting dynamic duo of "Faster" and "Locked Inside" and the sentimental faux-throwback "Oh, Maker" all showcasing different sides of Monáe while retaining the same passion that makes her biggest songs so powerful; "Dance or Die", the real opener of the album after the initial overture, has also slowly but steadily climbed in my charts as one of the album's cornerstone pieces by delivering a left-field punch right from the go and locking the album into its suspenseful groove right after the orchestral intro. It's a kaleidoscopic smörgåsbord of sounds and ideas, conducted by Monáe into a run of songs that makes sense out of its rollercoaster dash.

Suite III meanwhile takes a more atmospheric and often moodier route, though it has its outliers with the bubbly and breezy "Wondaland" that wouldn't have been out of place in the first half either, and the more controversial "Make the Bus". The latter is through-and-through an Of Montreal song (written, recorded and performed by Kevin Barnes' troupe) and Monáe comes across more like a backing vocalist in her own album on it, so I get why it typically gets singled out - but I also really like Of Montreal's brand of hyperkinetic cotton candy disco and the song itself is giddily irresistable in its white indie boy laptop funk groove, so I can give it a pass for not being as in line with the rest of the album. Otherwise though, this is where The ArchAndroid well and truly heads into its concept album core and touches more upon musical theatre and drama than the first album's melting pot of decades of pop music: Monáe gets to show off her vocal chops more and the songs have more indulgent orchestral arrangements, and the way the album flows gives it a natural sense of continuity that it doesn't all come out of the blue. It's not as immediately ecstatic as the first half but arguably is what makes The ArchAndroid a deeper experience as a whole. That said, "BabopbyeYa" isn't necessarily the right closer for the album and the one song I'd single out with less praise. It's easy to get what it's trying to do with its eight-minute, three-act musical suite by bringing the album close with a sense of drama, but the problem is that it immediately follows from "Say You'll Go" which is another emotional slowburn closer with an extended outro and which performs the curtain call ballad fare better. Closing an album this radiant and energetic with two huge arm-reaching spotlight ballads just doesn't feel right and gives it an unexpectedly - and slightly ill-fittingly - muted ending.

Still, that's barely a blemish and it honestly would have been more surprising if there wasn't a faint miss of some proportion in an album that's so uncompromisingly everything and anything its maker could name it to be. Viewing this retrospectively, The ArchAndroid is the most all over the place of her albums but by some strange twist of fate also her most consistent and cohesive, drawing its strengths from its wild abandon and borderless ambition. In lesser hands this could have crumbled down and among her many strengths, being able to wield this so adeptly is Monáe's greatest talent. Maybe it's a little too stretched across the entire map to be a truly classic album, but iconic? One of a kind? Monáe ticks those boxes with no effort.

Physically: Jewel case with a fold-out booklet. Rather than lyrics, the liner notes establish the general setting and overview of the concepts and themes of the album. The expansive credits section also lists individual inspirations for each song on the record, ranging from specific songs or reference points in other art media, to "Princess Leia's cinnamon buns hairstyle".