Janelle Monáe - The Electric Lady
Critic Score
Based on 41 reviews
2013 Ratings: #42 / 1115
Year End Rank: #23
User Score
Based on 989 ratings
2013 Rank: #46
Liked by 122 people
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CRITIC REVIEWS

100
Evening Standard
It’s a high-wire act but Monáe is fast establishing herself as pop’s finest trapeze artist.
100
Exclaim!

Existing in layers, The Electric Lady revels in its polarity. The overriding statement, however, is that Janelle Monae has arrived.

100
The Telegraph
What a wild and wonderful listening experience this is: bristling with ideas, constantly shooting off at different angles but always replete with earworm melodies, plush with glittering sounds, charged with intelligent and emotional lyrics and underpinned by a syncopated rhythm section that shifts gears effortlessly from tightly coiled to blazingly expansive.
95
The 405

The Electric Lady features so many different styles yet each one is done near perfectly. Moving between genres is seamless and each track is so full of character as a result of this diversity, the exemplary arrangements and, of course, Monáe herself leading the way.

92
Sputnikmusic

The Electric Lady is also a dazzling artistic statement, a fiendlishly clever album that oozes enough feminine charm, wit and charisma to endow dozens of regular pop starlets with.

91
Paste

What could be unwieldy becomes a vast patchwork of influences buoying empowerment.

90
Tiny Mix Tapes
Janelle gathers all of it — the concepts, the genres, the images, the marketing — under her bright-eyed love of pop’s sloppy democracy, where you can’t tell the difference between chicken and pork, between robots and the real kids, but where the booty never, ever lies.
90
PopMatters

This is smart, intelligent, thought-provoking music. And it will make you want to dance.

90
The Line of Best Fit

All in all, it is one of the most exceptionally realised albums to enter the world since her last release, and confirms that both as an artist and a role-model Monáe really ought to be celebrated as Electric Lady number one.

90
FasterLouder

The Electric Lady is rich with musical sustenance both classic and futurist.

90
No Ripcord

Janelle Monáe has not simply lived up to our expectations here; she has shattered them, delivering a confident, creative, and enormously entertaining record that marginally betters her sublime debut.

90
Spectrum Culture

While The Electric Lady is meant to challenge those who hear it, it’s an album that sounds cheerful, amorous, and elated, prepared to confront a world of haters, hated and cynics with dizzying abandon, open arms and shaking hips.

83
Pitchfork

Taken as a whole, The Electric Lady is a convincing argument for the virtues of micromanagement, but some of the most powerful, tender moments come from acknowledging  limits.

83
A.V. Club

The songs themselves are undeniably empowering without being especially overt or sloganeering about it; where Beyoncé claims that girls run the world, Monáe has gone ahead and created her own world, one with her own rules.

83
Pretty Much Amazing

Janelle Monáe thankfully narrows her sonic scope on The Electric Lady, her equally epic and frequently wonderful second album.

80
The Guardian

At its best, The Electric Lady is audacious, intrepid and brilliantly executed.

80
Drowned in Sound
Beyond all the album’s polarities and shape-shifting, it finds Monáe sounding more human than we’ve ever heard her, and that’s the source of its richest successes.
80
Slant Magazine
The Electric Lady is a lengthy but never boring tribute to bounce and grind.
80
Crack Magazine
A record that might just cement Monáe's rep as one of today's most credible pop stars.
80
The Independent
She’s uniquely gifted – one’s only reservation concerns her inclination to pack everything into each track.
80
The Observer
Monáe's second full-length record is just as irresistible as her first: a supercharged collection of funk, soul and jazz, all in service to the cosmology of Cindi Mayweather, intergalactic android alter ego.
80
The Arts Desk
She is a master of eccentric chic, sophisticated, with a hint of the (tastefully) bizarre.
80
The Irish Times
Monae is still riffing on the yarn of intergalactic android Cindi Mayweather, but the sci-fi back-story doesn't get in the way of the cosmic pop funk, soul and jazz that powers this remarkable album.
80
FACT Magazine

Each homage is perfectly realised, and for an artist whose conceptualism has been decried as having a distancing effect, Monáe has visceral passion and crackling emotional immediacy to burn.

80
musicOMH

The album is admirably steeped in pop music history without seeming derivative and where The Electric Lady triumphs is in its ability to connect with the listener. 

80
AllMusic

Equally as detailed and as entertaining as The ArchAndroid, The Electric Lady is likewise a product of overactive imaginations and detailed concept engineering, and it also plays out like a sci-fi opera-slash-variety program with style and era-hopping galore.

80
Consequence of Sound

It’s a very large world, but one stocked with charming character, tasty pop, and enlightening lyricism that shines like an electric heart through the android framework.

80
HipHopDX

Monae transcends what we’ve come to see and hear from current Pop stars.

80
The Fly

It’s a rare treat to feel so included by an album, and even more so for an artist to work so hard on achieving that inclusion. This isn’t her masterpiece (that’s to come in the sixth and seventh suites), but it’s only a sliver away.

80
Time Out London

Don’t be put off by her appetite for the esoteric – what we’re dealing with remains beautifully performed, instantly addictive pop music constructed with enough nuance to reward repeated listening.

75
Under the Radar

Conceptually, she maintains her status as ‘s concept-album queen, bloating her collections of divergent pop tunes with campy sci-fi story and mythology. Musically, she’s a time- and genre-traveler—frankly all over the place—with a backbone of big beats, big choruses, and big ambition.

75
Entertainment Weekly
While the vibe’s heady, the music can drift into syrupy cabaret or oversoft funk.
70
Rolling Stone
You’ve got to admire an artist who can cut through the weight of her own pretensions. And with Janelle Monáe, the pretensions are pretty impressive.
70
The Needle Drop

With The Electric Lady, singer-songwriter and composer Janelle Monáe adds two more suites to her ongoing metropolis series. This time, she seems to embrace her classic influences in the worlds of R&B and soul closer than ever.

70
The Sydney Morning Herald

''I defy every label.'' With The Electric Lady, the American soul sensation's second full-length album, Monae is true to her word, even if the album comes close to being wilfully eclectic.

70
SPIN

It is possible to love The Electric Lady, even if deep listening may be required to seal the deal. She certainly works hard for our devotion.

70
NME
The sci-fi soul maverick’s second album can’t match her debut for ambition, but it’s still fiercely entertaining.
40
The Skinny

There are some nice moments, but listening ultimately only makes a case for pop’s past, rather than the present.

ChazzaMaate
90

YALL BE SLEEPIN ON HER 😴😴 BUT WE ALL KNOW 🧠🧠 SHES ONE OF THE BEST TO EVER DO IT 👑👑

"The Electric Lady", sees Janelle Monáe continuing to expand upon her previous release, "The ArchAndroid", by creating even more soulful disco and R&B that proves why she's one of the best to do Funk within the past decade. It's filled with passion and colour, being equally as grand and creative as her previous album. Sure, this takes a more contemporary approach ... read more

KIDWITHGUNs
100

🎤 🎤 🎤 🎤🎤

There are very few artists I've praised as much as I have Janelle Monáe. Her debut, "The ArchAndroid" has gone on to be my favourite album of all time, due to the emotional potency, the cinematic quality front to back, and the incomparable passion carrying every moment.

Easily one of the most inventive R&B albums ever. With that project alone, she's proven herself to be capable of melting within next to any genre she wants. Her range and ... read more

POPDESIGN
82

The Electric Lady is the most past-oriented of Janelle Monáe's discography, and is not as extraordinary as her debut, but it is a very fruitful album.
The homage to Stevie Wonder and Prince is impressive.

Highlights : Ghetto Woman, Dance Apocalyptic, It's Code or Sally Ride

Zess
82

EDIT (80-->82) WE WERE ROCK N' ROLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There exists a mysterious link between the height of a human being and their ability to create great soul music. Prince always maintained the stature of a thirteen-year-old boy, James Brown never stood taller than a barstool. This peculiarity of life can become clearer to our minds provided we delve into the fundamental component of this music. Far beyond, or rather well below, the vocal acrobatics executed on the heartstrings of heartbreak ... read more

80

I'm shocked!
HURHURHUR you got it?? "shocked"? "Electric lady"?

drvibesphd
100

I was familiar with a few Janelle Monae songs, and with her amazing performance in Glass Onion, so I checked out this album and I liked it a lot. It's apparently the third album in a sci-fi concept series, so I'm missing some context, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying these psychedelic soul bangers. You know how you can tell from the get-go that this is a great album? Prince is on the second track. PRINCE. And that's not even the best song on the album. "Electric Lady," ... read more

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Added on: June 28, 2013