Maps of Music

The Electric Lady (2013)

Where the lyrics of The Electric Lady take you, and where it was really made.

Janelle Monáe never posed for the cover of The Electric Lady. Illustrator Sam Spratt painted it from thousands of reference photos instead.

Key places

Recording at EastWest Studios, Los Angeles (2013)

Recording site EastWest Studios — Some tracks on The Electric Lady were recorded at EastWest Studios in Los Angeles, alongside the main sessions at Wondaland in Atlanta. The pin marks the studio building. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• The Electric Lady: second studio album by American singer and songwriter Janelle Monáe
• Released September 6, 2013 by Wondaland Arts Society, Bad Boy Records and Atlantic Records
• US release on Wondaland Arts Society and Bad Boy Records on September 10, 2013
• Follow-up to the debut album The ArchAndroid (2010), which also received universal acclaim
• Contains the fourth and fifth installments of her seven-part Metropolis concept series
• Musical influences include hip hop soul, funk, gospel, jazz, rock, pop and reggae
• Nineteen tracks in total

Background

• Follows the debut EP Metropolis: Suite I (The Chase) (2007) and The ArchAndroid (2010)
• Partly inspired by the 1927 film Metropolis
• Story centres on Cindi Mayweather, a messianic android sent back in time
• Mayweather is sent to free the citizens of Metropolis from The Great Divide, a secret society that uses time travel to suppress freedom and love
• Monáe debuted tracks from the album at the 2012 Toronto Jazz Festival
• Made available for pre-order on the iTunes Store on July 2, 2013, with 'Dance Apocalyptic' as the pre-order bonus
• Guest appearances by Miguel, Erykah Badu, Solange, Prince and Esperanza Spalding
• Production from the funk duo Deep Cotton and soul composer Roman GianArthur

Recording

• Main recording location: Wondaland Recording Studios in Atlanta, Georgia
• Some tracks were also recorded at EastWest Studios in Los Angeles
• Mixing took place at Silent Sound Studios in Atlanta, Patchwerk Recording Studios in Atlanta, the HotPurplePettingZoo in Los Angeles and ZAC Studios in Atlanta
• Mastering was done at COS Mastering in Atlanta

Cover

• Cover painted by Sam Spratt, a New York-based illustrator
• Monáe herself never sat for the artwork
• Spratt was given thousands of photos from every angle to use as references
• The cover art was produced in about two months
• Standard cover shows Cindi Mayweather and her five sisters
• Deluxe cover shows Cindi Mayweather alone

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · www.discogs.com · fr.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Early life

• Born December 1, 1985 in Kansas City, Kansas, raised in the working-class Quindaro community.
• Raised Baptist and learned to sing in a local church; dreamed of performing from a young age.
• Studied musical theater at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York, then moved to Atlanta and enrolled at Georgia Perimeter College.
• Self-released the demo album The Audition in 2003.

Career

• Signed to Bad Boy Records in 2006; debut EP Metropolis: Suite I (The Chase) received critical acclaim.
• Debut studio album The ArchAndroid (2010) peaked at number 17 on the Billboard 200.
• Guest vocals on fun.'s "We Are Young", which topped the charts of more than ten countries.
• The Electric Lady (2013) debuted at number five on the Billboard 200.
• Dirty Computer (2018) was named best album of the year by several publications and was accompanied by a film.
• The Age of Pleasure (2023) was nominated for Album of the Year at the 66th Grammy Awards.
• Acting: Moonlight and Hidden Figures (2016), Harriet (2019), Glass Onion (2022), and Homecoming (2020).
• Founded the Wondaland Arts Society label, which formed a joint venture with Epic Records in 2015.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Universal acclaim from music critics
• Metacritic average score of 82, based on reviews from mainstream critics
• The Guardian's Alexis Petridis praised the album as audacious, intrepid and brilliantly executed
• Holly Gleason of Paste described it as a 19-track epic that weaves spoken radio breaks, callers and promos into a 25th-century immediacy
• Peter Tabakis of Pretty Much Amazing gave it a B+ and called it a more focused epic than The ArchAndroid
• Ben Wener of OC Register praised Monáe's outta-space idiosyncrasies and said the record hits hard like Janet Jackson
• Jayson Greene in Pitchfork called it a convincing argument for the virtues of micromanagement
• Jez Collins of PopMatters gave a positive review, saying the album is smart, thought-provoking music
• Rolling Stone praised an artist who can cut through the weight of her own pretensions and said Monáe holds the album together through freakadelic will

Records

• Debuted at number five on the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 47,000 copies, Monáe's highest debut-week sales to that point
• Fell to number twenty-three the following week with 15,000 copies sold
• Dropped to number forty-seven in its third week with 9,000 copies sold
• Entered the UK Albums Chart at number fourteen, selling 5,498 copies in its first week
• The A.V. Club ranked the album at number fourteen on its list of the 23 best albums of 2013

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · it.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• Dance Apocalyptic was released alongside its emotion picture music video on July 2, 2013, and Monáe danced on David Letterman's desk on the album's release day
• Monáe's team brought early versions of the tracks to Atlanta's strip clubs to see how the audience moved to them
• Prince contributed a special Fashion remix of Q.U.E.E.N. on the deluxe tracks, and it was later used in Chanel's Spring/Summer 2014 Ready-to-Wear show
• On September 14, 2013, Monáe performed a set at the 2013 iTunes Festival at The Roundhouse in London
• Monáe hosted listening sessions for press and VIPs in several US locations before release

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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