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The themes explored in Dirty Computer are ones that Monáe has been delving into for over ten years now, and they have reached a level of sophistication and compassion in this album that put her on par with her mentor, Prince, at his very best.
Before I even get to the “emotion picture”, I want to start by saying that Janelle Monáe’s Dirty Computer album is the sound of the summer, 2018. Sorry, Florence: no matter how high your hopes were, Ms. Monáe had me from April, when the album’s third single ‘Pynk’ was released. Evoking the lyrical structure of an Aerosmith classic, and featuring Grimes, ‘Pynk’ is a dreamy queer women’s sex anthem that sounds like Prince and Lana Del Rey got high together and decided to jam. No one was going to top that. Especially not after that music video.
The themes explored in Dirty Computer are ones that Monáe has been delving into for over a decade now, and they have reached a level of sophistication and compassion in this album that put her on par with her mentor, the aforementioned Prince, at his very best. Queerness and the freedom to live and love in your own way, finding the strength to speak out and claim your place in a world that isn’t necessarily thrilled to have you in it — these are messages we very much need to hear right now, and of course, the ArchAndroid herself is bringing them to us in a high-tech package. The lyrics can be straight-up intellectual, or smart in a wittier way, or evocatively emotional, sometimes sexy and naughty, but they’re never apologetic.
“Dirty Computer: An Emotion Picture” is a 45-minute music video that contextualises the songs on the album into a sci-fi love story directed by Andrew Donoho and Chuck Lightning. Starring the openly pansexual Monáe and her rumoured real-life girlfriend, the lovely Tessa Thompson, “Dirty Computer: An Emotion Picture” took my breath away, made me cry and made me cheer. Set in a dystopian future where citizens are called computers, Monáe’s character, Jane 57821, has been arrested by a homophobic, totalitarian State that wants to erase her personality and memories to make her more compliant with their vision of what is acceptable. Mary is the titular Dirty Computer, and she’s good with that, thanks.
The songs unfold as Jane’s memories of her Crazy, Classic Life and her lovers, Zen (Thompson) and Ché (Jayson Aaron), are replayed before being erased by her jailers. To say any more about how the story goes would be spoilery — you really should treat yourself and watch this. It takes the album to a whole other level.
As for the album, its 14 tracks feature collaborations with Zoë Kravitz, Pharrell Williams, Grimes and Brian Wilson. Highlights for me include the aforementioned ‘Pynk,’ ‘Crazy, Classic Life,’ ‘Screwed,’ ‘Americans’ and ‘Take a Byte’ but it’s one of those incredible albums that doesn’t have a weak spot and flows from track to track wonderfully. This is particularly striking given the diversity of sound that Monáe has put into the one album — but they’re all inescapably her. Every moment of the emotion picture and the album were co-written and co-produced by Monáe, from the most politically-charged lyrics (“Just love me baby, love me for who I am/Fallen angels singing, ‘Clap your hands’/Don’t try to take my country, I will defend my land/I’m not crazy, baby, naw/I’m American”) to the catchy, accessible radio-ready jams that will never get out of your head.
- ‘Dirty Computer’ (featuring Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys)
The beginning riff of this first track is almost innocently singsong in a Beach Boys-ish manner, but the lyrics are a primer for the idea of what a dirty computer just might be. It’s a relatively light beginning to an intense album.
- ‘Crazy, Classic Life’
If this whole album could be encapsulated by one song, it’s this one. There’s a spoken-word introduction evocative of Martin Luther King, lyrics discussing discrimination that allude to Malcolm X and a ribbon of queerness running throughout. “Inspired by the vibranium in Wakanda, wild mushroom tea parties in Mexico, and the notion that true freedom also comes from ‘the right to be wrong, at least occasionally,’” Monáe sings about just wanting to fully and freely live her life. Yes, I cried.
- ‘Take a Byte’
Probably the most playful track on the album, ‘Take a Byte’ is still feminist gold that was, according to Monáe, “inspired by Eve in the Garden of Eden, Bilquis the Queen of Sheba in American Gods, Marlene Clark in Ganja & Hess, and Scheherazade in Arabian Nights.” It’s also an advancement of the idea of queerness being a cause for a computer to end up ‘dirty’: “Your code is programmed not to love me,” she sings.
- ‘Jane’s Dream’ (instrumental)
Jane references ‘Jane 57821’, the central character of the “emotion picture”, and this track was, according to Monáe, “inspired by my terrifying nightmares about a near-future America full of abductions and secret detention centers–oddly like our own.” Eek.
- ‘Screwed’ (featuring Zoë Kravitz)
This is a synth-heavy middle finger to 2018, the patriarchy and Trump. It’s a bonafide bop that celebrates sexual agency while raging against the massive amounts of havoc being wreaked right now — in short, it’s kind of the Millennials’ anthem. “You fucked the world up now / we’ll fuck it all back down / let’s get screwed / I don’t care / we’ll put water in your guns / we’ll do it all for fun.”
I’m always here for Monáe rapping, and she closes out this track with fierce indictments of corruption (“The devil met with Russia and they just made a deal”) that flow into the rap-heavy track to follow.
- ‘Django Jane’
The second single released from the album, ‘Django Jane’, is fierce. The lyrics are feminist as hell, and there’s a pounding bass underneath it all. This track, according to Monáe, is “a response to me feeling the sting of the threats being made to my rights as a woman, as a black woman, as a sexually liberated woman, even just as a daughter with parents who have been oppressed for many decades. Black women and those who have been the ‘other’, and the marginalised in society – that’s who I wanted to support, and that was more important than my discomfort about speaking out.”
- ‘Pynk’ (featuring Grimes)
To quote the pussy-powered lyrics, “Pynk is my favourite part.” As I mentioned in the introduction, this is an extraordinary track on a variety of levels. The “emotion picture” version features a softer final verse that will take your breath away with its intimacy — not to be missed.
- ‘Make Me Feel’
The first single released from the album, this is high-energy bisexual funk. I didn’t know I needed high-energy bisexual funk in my life before this song, but now I know better. It’s as bouncy as the iconic “Q.U.E.E.N.” from her previous album The Electric Lady, and the music video features Thompson’s Zen and Aaron’s Ché dancing flirtatiously with Monáe in an Eighties-inspired nightclub.
- ‘I Got the Juice’ (featuring Pharrell Williams)
Another bop, and more pussy power, just in case you thought she was done with her intimate explorations in ‘Pynk.’ “My juice is my religion, got juice between my thighs / Now, ask the angels, baby, my juice is so divine / Ain’t no juice quite like yours, ain’t no juice quite like mine.” You know those songs you sang along to as an oblivious kidlet who had no idea how dirty the lyrics were? This is one for another generation.
- ‘I Like That’
Opening with an almost Motown sound, ‘I Like That’ feels very similar to ‘Make Me Feel,’ and then has a rap-interlude that evokes ‘Django Jane.’ Monáe likes what she likes: “I don’t really give a fuck if I was just the only one / Who likes that / I never like to follow.”
- ‘Don’t Judge Me’
The use of strings in this song adds a plaintive note to the husky vocals. Throughout her career, Monáe has playehttps://open.spotify.com/track/74uGhWp4BYpjFj1V2DzgoO?si=Ei5-cB7ESnyE7MGAb8s_EQd with differing personae, and in many ways, Dirty Computer is her most personal album to date — she came out as pansexual the day before its release in an interview with Rolling Stone. She asks not to be judged, and shares her fears — “Even though you tell me you love me / I’m afraid that you just love my disguise” — in lyrics that are at once very vulnerable and deeply universal.
- ‘Stevie’s Dream”
A short spoken-word piece by mentor Stevie Wonder, this feels like an emotional book-end to the instrumental ‘Jane’s Dream’ earlier in the album.
- ’So Afraid’
Another deeply vulnerable love song to the self and to the person you might be able to become if you’re brave enough to take a risk and come out of your shell. The faint echo to Monáe’s vocals become an empathetic chorus that back her along with the relatively simple orchestrations — it’s lovely, but not one of the stronger tracks.
- ’Americans’
This song makes me cry with its backhanded commentary about the U.S., a country I have deep emotional baggage about, and its riotous, up-tempo beat. Another strong contender for the iconic track that sums up the album with its combinations of rap, spoken word, uptempo rock and a vaguely gospel chorus backing. “War is old, so is sex, let’s play God, you go next / Hands go up, men go down, try my luck, stand my ground / Die in church, live in jail, say her name, twice in hell / Uncle Sam kissed a man, Jim Crow Jesus rose again.”
All in all, Dirty Computer the album is a radio-ready revolution that only the “Electric Lady” herself could bring us. Monáe has blended genres with apparent ease and has found a sound and an aesthetic that’s all her own.
