The Age of Pleasure: Album Review
Written by Harley, one of our music writers, and edited by Shraddha, one of our editors!
For over a decade, Janelle Monae was ever the innovator, both on, and off screens. On June 9, 2023, she released her fourth album The Age of Pleasure after a five-year gap. Many longtime fans (including myself) noted how much freer Monae looked on the album cover; her breasts out, and face beaming, as she swims underneath the legs of her brethren. Long gone was the conceit and bombastic imagery of her first two albums, and this record seemed more along the lines of the “free your body” rhetoric, that was also the backbone of Dirty Computer, her previous album.
Musically, it’s a looser record. The album triumphantly opens with the early single “Float”, a collaborative venture with Seun Kuti and Egypt 80, that blares forward with horns and a vocal performance that teeters gracefully between singing and rapping. Anyone familiar with Monae’s music knows that it’s thick and deeply layered, like the science fiction that ran through her first two records. “Float” does exactly what it sounds like it does: it floats. As Jayson Greene from Pitchfork stated: “nothing at stake with this song.” There’s a gorgeous levity to the track that makes the song a perfect entrance to the album. Long has Monae been a champion for equality and it was refreshing to see her relaxed, shedding off the Monopoly Man suit that she has donned for years. It is a song that is simply about being in the moment and celebrating it, and you can expect the rest of the record to flow into the same lightweight perspective. This song is queerer as well, even for someone who danced around in vagina pants, with tracks like “Lipstick Lover” and “Only Have Eyes 42” manifesting the specificity that queer pop music needs.
The eclectic genres that the record runs through is heartwarming as well. It has always been hard to throw Monae into the boundaries of a genre; R&B seems too shallow for how progressive and challenging her sound is, and she is way too on the margins of pop to be considered a pop star. If anything, The Age of Pleasure seems bound in blackness. Funk has always been a staple of her sound ever since The ArchAndroid, but even more crucial to the record’s sound is Afropop. The featured artists enhance this; Afropop’s future can be heard with Seun Kuti, the son of Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti, and Amaarae. The community today expands globally, with up-and-coming rapper Doechii alongside veteran actress Nia Long and black music legends, like Sister Nancy and Grace Jones. Most of these artists don’t make themselves too known — Long, Jones, and Sister Nancy dissipate gently with spoken word interludes — but it seems like a particular testament to how Monae can casually gather such heavy talent in a featherweight record.
The album is breezy and short, and as a longtime Monae listener, I wonder if I wanted something more challenging and innovative, especially from an artist who constantly raises the bar. While at times I found the record a step up from Dirty Computer (I have gripes about that record’s penchant for white feminist cliches) none of the songs here earworm (except “The Rush”) as hard as “PYNK” and neither did they showcase her impeccable vocals like in “Make Me Feel” or “Oh, Maker.” But truthfully, that’s okay. For such a restless warrior of the people, and especially in a time where we are constantly fighting for survival, I believe this kind of levity is priceless.
The record seems like a necessary sunbeam, especially in a world where we’re fighting and our rights are being stripped away every day. It seems like eventually the world will need that messianic android back, the one who dismantled gender binaries, and fought for equality, when the only LGBT representation we had was Glee. Even if the record doesn’t forge new ground, it continues to remind us that there is immense abundance of joy and love to fight for.
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This piece was written by one of our poetry columnists, Harley. Reach him at @ha.rleyn, on Instagram!
This piece was edited by one of our editors, Shraddha. Reach her at @shraddhagulati_ on Instagram!
