Janelle Monáe: The ArchAndroid (2LP) [WONDALAND/BAD BOY]

Why you'll love it

This 2LP set spreads her 18-song Afrofuturist epic across four sides in a gatefold jacket with a printed insert. The ArchAndroid earned a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary R&B Album and landed on many best-of-2010 lists.

This edition

• 2LP set
• Gatefold jacket
• Printed insert

About the album

Most debut albums introduce a singer. The ArchAndroid introduces a whole universe. Janelle Monáe built it as the second and third suites of her Metropolis series, following Cindi Mayweather, a messianic android sent back in time to free a city from a secret society, with nods to Fritz Lang's 1927 film.

She made it at Wondaland Studios in Atlanta with Nate "Rocket" Wonder and Chuck Lightning, and it leaps between genres with total confidence. "Tightrope," with Outkast's Big Boi, is a tuxedo-sharp funk workout, "Cold War" is breathless new wave, "Faster" and "Locked Inside" glide on Motown and disco, and "Make the Bus" brings in of Montreal's Kevin Barnes. Saul Williams joins on "Dance or Die," Deep Cotton turn up too, and the orchestral overtures frame it all like a film score, right down to "BabopbyeYa," an eight-minute closer with strings. Sean Combs signed on as an executive producer, with Big Boi as co-executive producer.

Critics reached for Prince, David Bowie, Michael Jackson and Outkast to describe it. Not bad for a debut; most of us were still working out our first email signature.

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Tracklist

Listen

On Wondaland / Bad Boy / Atlantic (cat# 512256-1), the 2010 album.