Dirty Computer is Monáe’s gift to young girls, boys, men, women and non-binary people who are ostracised just for embracing their true selves; to black men and women. It’s a message of love and hope to anyone who fears what is different, but who has capacity to learn and know better. And it’s seemingly a gift to herself, as well.
On Dirty Computer, the erstwhile Electric Lady loses the metal and circuitry, but none of her power or artistry, cementing her status alongside Prince in the hall of hyper-talented, gender-fluid icons who love and promote blackness.
She makes music that for all its cleverness, ambition and feminist sentiment is just really, really fun.
Dirty Computer is flamboyant and resilient, fun and hard-hitting and, if you've ever felt socially and politically oppressed, a spot has been saved for you in this brave new world.
Dirty Computer is more a piece of art than just an album. Immerse yourself in Dirty Computer; you won’t regret it. If you don’t like it, appreciate it…it’s one of the year’s most important albums from one of the world’s most important artist.
Fierce, honest and a challenge to the forces of obsolescence, Dirty Computer feels like a vital upgrade from a true renegade.
Monáe is, as always, a true master of melding genres, influences, and styles. Her central themes of identity and internal conflict are as tangible on Dirty Computer as they ever have been.
As a whole, Dirty Computer strikes the perfect balance between joy and sadness, offering a deeply resonant account of Monáe’s personal experiences as a black woman.
In its own way, its as artful, ambitious, determined, joyous and inspiring, as Lemonade or To Pimp a Butterfly. It's a sexy MF-ing masterpiece.
'Dirty Computer' captures the plight of today's outsiders who are fighting back, forming the world to be. Monáe is 10 steps ahead, past the Trump era, embracing the robot-utopia that gives hope to an unprejudiced and equal world. She´s already there - now the rest of us have to catch up.
With Dirty Computer, Monáe isn't afraid to get political, encourage empathy, explore her sexuality and have goofy fun, often doing all that and more in the same song.
Monáe’s ability to capture the complex existence of many American people within some of the most instantly likable pop songs of recent memory makes Dirty Computer a stand-out album of the year.
While this is easily the most loaded Monáe album in terms of guests ... there's no doubt that it's a Wondaland product. It demonstrates that artful resistance and pop music are not mutually exclusive.
Ever since the release of The ArchAndroid, Monáe has been tipped to be a future icon. On Dirty Computer, she finally makes good on her promise, keeping the fearlessness of her earlier albums while refining her focus.
Ushering in a new era of openness for Monáe, Dirty Computer is simultaneously her most confident and intimate offering to date.
The record is big and colorful, its production drawing equally from hip-hop’s visceral impact and psychedelia’s strange weather, its pacing perfect and its songs casually bleeding into one another. It works so well as a big-picture record that it’s easy to forgive Monáe for leaving the edges a little fuzzy.
The aim here is to rocket-propel Monáe into the mainstream, and on that count Dirty Computer succeeds: it is a juicy, genre-crossing pop record ripe with the funk, which somehow combines Beyoncé’s Lemonade and St Vincent’s Masseduction with lashings of Lauryn Hill.
Dirty Computer is yet another example of Monae’s prowess and mastery as well as being perhaps her more important statement to date in terms of addressing contemporary America.
Dirty Computer is Janelle Monáe's poppiest album to date, as well as her most deeply sexual and political.
Typically dense with historical reference points, as well as contemporary interrogations of real-world issues, Dirty Computer is the ecstatic protest album for an era that will keep people pondering its cultural significance for generations to come.
Her charisma, coupled with her artful and unique touch, positions her on a more commercial field without the slightest compromise. But the real story of Dirty Computer is how Monáe reveals an autobiographical sketch.
Dirty Computer may be the natural climax that started with cyborgs and wolfmasters and robot-human love, and it certainly makes for a stunning moment within the context of Monáe’s previous work. It also stands as an important political-cultural document. Fortunately, it’s also a very good record.
Yes, Dirty Computer falters along the way with a few weak hooks and some questionable lyrics but at least she was able to wipe out the old Monáe and reboot who she’s truly meant to be — both artistically and personally.
This time her lyrics take place in the real world rather than a fictional narrative and with it centralising on what it’s like to be a pansexual African American woman in modern day society, Dirty Computer feels like one of the most significant, insightful and important albums of the year.
In shedding her sci-fi persona, Monáe has ended up making a great pop album, and a rallying call for “free-ass motherfuckers” everywhere.
Dirty Computer succeeds overall because of it mostly delivers the same elements that made the Metropolis lineage soar.
After navigating complex matrices of identity under an indulgent, accessible veneer, Dirty Computer is ultimately — even “simply” — a cathartic assertion of self in a hostile system.
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Not many people know this but I'm also a talented and accomplished actor. If you don't believe me you should see me pretending to give a shit about you if you don't think Monáe is one of the greatest artists of all time.
Excuse the pretentiousness!! But who wants a track-by-track review of Dirty Computer to kick off the year?? No???
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Well I'm giving it to you anyways you ungrateful clown!!
This is the 3rd studio album by THE Kansas powerhouse, Janelle ... read more
In all seriousness, this album felt like one of those projects that if ANY other female artist came out with, it would be dismissed soooooo fast. The singing is sweet but There are countless lines here that are so eye-squintingly annoying. This is a score from my personal enjoyment. By the end of this thing I felt pandered to and this felt like overhyped critic bait
Edit: I can tolerate 3 songs on this album. Seriously this thing gets next to no enjoyment from me
“I consider myself to be a free-ass motherfucker.”
Nearly a decade ago, Kanye West begged us a harrowing question: “who will survive in America?” Although the answer is still unclear, Janelle Monáe subverts the question and demands her own truth, and that truth revolves around her queer, black, and feminist identities. She doesn’t ask who will survive in America because she knows that all Americans should and will survive even in the face of opposition, of ... read more
Check out Janelle Monáe's new album "Dirty Computer" if you get the chance. Sound of the summer.
EDIT (80-->84)
Disappointed at first listen (misled by the mainstream veneer), I initially thought this album wasn't at all up to par with her previous two. But with many more listens, I realized it had much more to offer than I had initially thought.
The grand return. Janelle Monáe may not have actually left, but at that time, she was primarily making waves on the big screen (with "Hidden Figures" and the Oscar-winning "Moonlight") or behind a podium (delivering ... read more
1 | Dirty Computer 1:59 feat. Brian Wilson | 85 |
2 | Crazy, Classic, Life 4:46 | 87 |
3 | Take A Byte 4:07 | 86 |
4 | Jane’s Dream 0:18 | 77 |
5 | Screwed 5:02 feat. Zoë Kravitz | 90 |
6 | Django Jane 3:10 | 87 |
7 | Pynk 4:00 feat. Grimes | 87 |
8 | Make Me Feel 3:14 | 93 |
9 | I Got The Juice 3:46 feat. Pharrell Williams | 81 |
10 | I Like That 3:20 | 89 |
11 | Don’t Judge Me 6:00 | 86 |
12 | Stevie’s Dream 0:46 | 78 |
13 | So Afraid 4:03 | 84 |
14 | Americans 4:06 | 85 |
#1 | / | Albumism |
#1 | / | Associated Press |
#1 | / | NPR Music |
#1 | / | OOR |
#1 | / | Refinery29 |
#1 | / | Spectrum Culture |
#1 | / | The Interns |
#1 | / | The New York Times: Jon Pareles |
#2 | / | Consequence of Sound |
#2 | / | Double J |