★★★☆☆
It’s all sun, sex and sultry sounds in Janelle Monáe’s aptly-titled fourth album, The Age of Pleasure. It might grow weary in parts, but it’s an album that commences the summer feeling nonetheless.Janelle Monáe has every reason to be confident. Her performance in last year’s Netflix film Glass Onion was among the highlights of the acclaimed whodunnit, as she played a character with a cool, calm exterior and nerves of steel beneath. Her prowess in Hollywood, which is now more than just a foray, had you thinking: is there nothing Monáe can’t do? Especially given her acting successes are, of course, coupled with a catalogue of intricate, forward-facing RnB albums, which have to date lent on high concepts and Afrofuturist themes. That is, until now. The glamorous world Monáe occupies might be a million miles away from the wood stain brand Ronseal, but on the singer’s latest album, they share a common value; The Age of Pleasure does exactly what it says on the tin. Sensual and salacious, it beckons an age of liberation and gratification. With all the bravado of a high-flying rapper, Monáe takes pleasure in all she surveys, rapping on opener ‘Float’, for instance, “She stay in the hills, he stay in Atlanta I paid for them both.” This track is a clear mood-setter. Akin to a yogi instructing a class to leave their troubles at the door and “forgive all [your] frenemies”, Monáe claims that by cutting off those with bad energy, you’ll feel airy-light like her. Only here, it’s not vinyasa that’s on offer but the thrill of voyeuristic hedonism.
This is affirmed through ‘Champagne Shit’ and its ‘Black Sugar Beach’ extension, which cement a boss-girl attitude that runs throughout the album. In The Age of Pleasure, there’s no shame in boasting about sexual conquests. Later track ‘Haute’ pronounces this with its to-the-point cries of “I’m feeling so sexy”; ‘Water Slide’, meanwhile, takes this to its extreme egotistical conclusion, as Monáe confesses, “If I could fuck me right here right now / I would do that.”
One of the standout tracks, ‘Phenomenal’, featuring Top Dawg Entertainment rapper Doechii, also draws on this, with a feminine might and self-belief on par with Beyoncé’s; and just like Queen Bey’s ‘Pure/Honey’ this track also serves the c-word as an act of reclamation.
Sonically, there’s a lot to admire about The Age of Pleasure. Its intermittent embraces of Afrobeat (‘Know Better’), reggae (‘Lipstick Lover’) and Jamaican deejaying from Sister Nancy (‘The French 75’) transport you to a world of sun and sand – exactly the sort you could go swimming through the legs of a conga line, as Monáe does on the album cover.
Yet sometimes, the upbeat sound of horns and laid-back grooves grows samey. Add into the mix the sybaritic message at the heart of virtually every track, and by the time you hit the track ‘Paid In Pleasure’ (what else would it be titled?), the album verges on monotony, caught in a loop of its own thrill-seeking ventures – akin to Calvin Harris’ similar pool-party- themed latest album, Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 2. Call me a miserable sod, but there’s a price to be paid for all this fun.
Photo: Mason Rose
