Press Play: Janelle Monae’s Dirty Computer
Janelle Monae released her fourth album after a 5-year break. Dirty Computer is the breath of fresh air we all need in this time of need. There has been some hit and miss from artists that have been releasing music lately and when I finally got around to listening to this album I was so happy to see new music from one of my favorite artists has finally arrived. I’ve been anticipating Janelle’s return to music I know she’s been focusing on many aspects of her career and how beautiful it panned out for her. Dirty Computer is a new start to me since this feels like such a personal project for Janelle and this centers around her freeing herself and publicly announcing her sexuality a Rolling Stone interview.
I listened to the album a few time for the past couple of weeks and I haven’t let it go. I have a few favorites and I have a different perspective of Janelle after hearing a few songs. Janelle also released a short film to go along with the album on YouTube, I’ll link that below. Its 48-minutes long and its a great visual to this album and a must see if you’re a fan of Janelle. The film was a great experience to watch I wouldn’t expect anything less than amazing coming from Janelle.
Dirty Computer Emotion Picture
Janelle Monae is one of my favortie artists to look out for because of how unique she is with her looks and sound. Being this uniquw definetly gives you some longivity in the game because people will always gravitate towards something they find new. This album was definetly one of her best, the different sounds she played with played well in her favor with these songs. You can tell that Prince had heavy influence on some songs and i later found out before he passed he helped produced the songs and mentored Janelle.
Track List
- Dirty Computer (Feat. Brian Wilson)
- Crazy, Classic, Life
- Take A Byte
- Jane’s Dream
- Screwed (Feat. Zoe Kravitz)
- Django Jane
- Pynk (Feat. Grimes)
- Make Me Feel
- I Got The Juice (Feat. Pharrell Williams)
- I Like That
- Don’t Judge Me
- Stevie’s Dream
- So Afraid
It has been over a year since Janelle dropped this album, I have to say the 5-year wait for this album was well worth it. I love the album, just about every song is in my daily rotation since it dropped. The Dirty Computer Emotion Picture that accompanied this album was beautiful to watch in its 48-minute glory and all It really captures what she was going for with this album.
The influences Prince has had on Janelle really shows in this album, Janelle confirmed that he worked with her on this album before passing in this interview (BBC Radio). When you listen to the album you can really hear which songs sound similar to Prince’s music and it was a really great feeling to know that Janelle got to work with one of her life role models sadly before he passed but she has that personal memory of him being her mentor throughout the process of making this album/project/new body of work. I hope you get the same exciting feeling I got from listening to this album.
