Looking for David…
With a front cover declaring: A new Bowie has landed, The Sunday Times Culture magazine makes the bold claim tht: Janelle Monáe is Ziggy Stardust for the iPod generation.
Inside, under the headline: The girl who fell to earth, the two-page interview/feature by Tom Shone states: “Janelle Monáe mixes funk and sci-fi, and has an android for an alter ego” …And that’s about as deep as the comparison goes.
Though one or two of her influences may be similar to those that informed the creation of Ziggy Stardust, it seems that Janelle herself finds the connection to Bowie tenuous…
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I don?t choreograph. I get up on stage and the more fearless side of me comes out The slightly spooky, disembodied nature comes with the territory: Monáe?s act is all about role-play, fantasy, theatrics. Her new album, The ArchAndroid, is actually parts two and three of a planned quartet of records charting the adventures of her alter ego ? an android named Cindi Mayweather, ?the muse for the entire project?, she says. ?She was in my dreams a lot: her name, her face. She?s my hero.?
The series?s first record, an EP called The Chase, found Cindi on the run in a futuristic police state modelled on Fritz Lang?s Metropolis.
The new album concerns a mythical figure called the Arch-Android ? a mix of the Bible?s Archangel and Neo in The Matrix ? who turns out to be none other than Cindi herself. An irresistible hybrid of uptempo soul, glam-pop, big-band funk and afro-futurism, scored with cinematic lushness, The ArchAndroid is not so much a pop record as an immersive fantasy experience ? as bonkers and beautiful as Prince at his purple best, with winks to Dali, Ziggy Stardust and Princess Leia along the way.
?I didn?t research David Bowie until people started saying, ?You remind me of David Bowie.? I was, like, ?Who is this David Bowie???
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Kids eh? Don’t know they’re born.
The Guardian made a slightly more convincing comparison recently, even if it was just as meaningless. Under the heading: In praise of ? Damon Albarn, the newspaper suggested that: “To see Damon Albarn with his band Gorillaz onstage at Glastonbury was to be reminded of the heyday of Bowie.”
Here’s the introduction to the piece…
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During the 1970s, David Bowie embarked on a dizzying journey through pop. Over the course of the decade, working with an ever-changing cast of collaborators, he recorded fey art-pop, butch glam rock, soul, disco and stern European rock. His run of successes is regarded as one of pop’s hottest streaks, his restlessness hailed as the sign of an unceasingly fertile mind.
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While there are many reasons to suggest it is a more pointless comparison than a valid one, I appreciate the spirit of the article and agree with the conclusion that Albarn is at least one of “our most unremittingly inventive pop figure in the 40 years since Bowie’s emergence.” And I also agree that we should be glad to have him.
You can read the full piece