Whereas Make Me Feel quite unequivocally recalled Kiss (occasionally rolling with melodies reminiscent of Stealers Wheel’s Stuck In the Middle With You), and PYNK was spattered with rose-tinted hints of Faith and, perhaps more improbably, M People’s Search for the Hero, I Like That – the latest to come from Janelle Monáe’s forthcoming third full-length, Dirty Computer – is quite unlike anything that has been released before it. “A little crazy, little sexy, little cool,” further reference points to a certain Atlantan trio may be few and far between, but this is “[powerful with a little bit of] tender,” eminently loveable stuff that absolutely everybody ought to care for: subtly “left-of-centre,” it solidifies Monáe’s standing as a sort of “random minor note you hear in major songs,” in that in spite of her celebrity, the natural eccentricity she exhibits in song form has yet to be compromised in the slightest. And so, as slouchy bass lines entrapped in a drum [machine] track typical of her adopted Georgian hometown pin things down, she’ll autobiographically soothe: “Little rough around the edges, but I keep it smooth;” snap: “I don’t really give a fuck if I was just the only one who likes that;” and rap: “I remember when you laughed when I cut my perm off, and you rated me a six/ I was like: “Damn!”/ But even back then, with the tears in my eyes, I always knew I was the shit.” And “the shit” Monáe looks set to remain indefinitely on the basis of all that’s been dumped down from her Dirty Computer thus far…
Dirty Computer is available from April 27th via Atlantic Records.