Janelle Monáe’s The ArchAndroid

Janelle Monáe’s The ArchAndroid PDF Author: Alyssa Favreau
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1501355724
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 153

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Book Description
In Janelle Monáe's full-length debut, the science fiction concept album The ArchAndroid, the android Cindi Mayweather is on the run from the authorities for the crime of loving a human. Living in 28th century Metropolis, Cindi fights for survival, soon realizing that she is in fact the prophesied ArchAndroid, a robot messiah meant to liberate the masses and lead them toward a wonderland where all can be free. Taking into account the literary merit of Monáe's astounding multimedia body of work, the political relevance of the science fictional themes and aesthetics she explores, and her role as an Atlanta-based pop cultural juggernaut, this book explores the lavish world building of Cindi's story, and the many literary, cinematic, and musical influences brought together to create it. Throughout, a history of Monáe's move to Atlanta, her signing with Bad Boy Records, and the trials of developing a full-length concept album in an industry devoted to the production of marketable singles can be found, charting the artist's own rise to power. The stories of Monáe and of Cindi are inextricably entwined, each making the other more compelling, fantastical, and deeply felt.

Janelle Monáe’s The ArchAndroid

Janelle Monáe’s The ArchAndroid PDF Author: Alyssa Favreau
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1501355724
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 153

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Book Description
In Janelle Monáe's full-length debut, the science fiction concept album The ArchAndroid, the android Cindi Mayweather is on the run from the authorities for the crime of loving a human. Living in 28th century Metropolis, Cindi fights for survival, soon realizing that she is in fact the prophesied ArchAndroid, a robot messiah meant to liberate the masses and lead them toward a wonderland where all can be free. Taking into account the literary merit of Monáe's astounding multimedia body of work, the political relevance of the science fictional themes and aesthetics she explores, and her role as an Atlanta-based pop cultural juggernaut, this book explores the lavish world building of Cindi's story, and the many literary, cinematic, and musical influences brought together to create it. Throughout, a history of Monáe's move to Atlanta, her signing with Bad Boy Records, and the trials of developing a full-length concept album in an industry devoted to the production of marketable singles can be found, charting the artist's own rise to power. The stories of Monáe and of Cindi are inextricably entwined, each making the other more compelling, fantastical, and deeply felt.

Janelle Monáe's The ArchAndroid

Janelle Monáe's The ArchAndroid PDF Author: Alyssa Favreau
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781501355738
Category : Afrofuturism
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
"Monáe's full-length debut, The Archandroid, is a science fiction concept album that tells the story of the android Cindi Mayweather, a citizen of 28th century Metropolis who is on the run from the authorities for daring to love a human. As she fights for survival, Cindi realizes that she is in fact the prophesied Archandroid, a robot messiah meant to liberate the masses and lead them toward a wonderland where all can be free. This book takes into account the literary merit of Monáe's astounding multimedia body of work, the political relevance of the science fictional themes and aesthetics she explores, and her role as an Atlanta-based pop cultural juggernaut. The exploration of the lavish world building present in Cindi's story, and the many literary, cinematic, and musical influences brought together to create it, will blend with a history of Monáe's move to Atlanta, her signing with Bad Boy Records, and the trials of developing of a full-length concept album in an industry overwhelmingly devoted to the production of marketable singles. The stories of Cindi and Janelle are inextricably entwined, each making the other more compelling, fantastical, and deeply felt"--

Janelle Monáe’s The ArchAndroid

Janelle Monáe’s The ArchAndroid PDF Author: Alyssa Favreau
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1501355716
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 152

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Book Description
In Janelle Monáe's full-length debut, the science fiction concept album The ArchAndroid, the android Cindi Mayweather is on the run from the authorities for the crime of loving a human. Living in 28th century Metropolis, Cindi fights for survival, soon realizing that she is in fact the prophesied ArchAndroid, a robot messiah meant to liberate the masses and lead them toward a wonderland where all can be free. Taking into account the literary merit of Monáe's astounding multimedia body of work, the political relevance of the science fictional themes and aesthetics she explores, and her role as an Atlanta-based pop cultural juggernaut, this book explores the lavish world building of Cindi's story, and the many literary, cinematic, and musical influences brought together to create it. Throughout, a history of Monáe's move to Atlanta, her signing with Bad Boy Records, and the trials of developing a full-length concept album in an industry devoted to the production of marketable singles can be found, charting the artist's own rise to power. The stories of Monáe and of Cindi are inextricably entwined, each making the other more compelling, fantastical, and deeply felt.

The Memory Librarian

The Memory Librarian PDF Author: Janelle Monáe
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0063070898
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
New York Times bestseller! In The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer, singer-songwriter, actor, fashion icon, futurist, and worldwide superstar Janelle Monáe brings to the written page the Afrofuturistic world of one of her critically acclaimed albums, exploring how different threads of liberation—queerness, race, gender plurality, and love—become tangled with future possibilities of memory and time in such a totalitarian landscape…and what the costs might be when trying to unravel and weave them into freedoms. Whoever controls our memories controls the future. Janelle Monáe and an incredible array of talented collaborators have crafted a collection of tales comprising the bold vision and powerful themes that have made Monáe such a compelling and celebrated storyteller. Dirty Computer introduced a world in which thoughts—as a means of self-conception—could be controlled or erased by a select few. And whether you were human, AI, or other, your life and sentience were dictated by those who’d convinced themselves they had the right to decide your fate. That was until Jane 57821 decided to remember and break free. Expanding from that mythos, these stories fully explore what it’s like to live in such a totalitarian society . . . and what it takes to get out of it. Building off the tradition of speculative fiction writers such as Octavia E. Butler, Ted Chiang, Becky Chambers, and Nnedi Okorafor—and filled with powerful themes and Monáe’s emblematic artistic vision—The Memory Librarian serves to readers tales that dissect the human trials of identity expression, technology, and love, reaching through to the worlds of memory and time, and the stakes and power that pulse there.

Janelle Monáe's Queer Afrofuturism

Janelle Monáe's Queer Afrofuturism PDF Author: Dan Hassler-Forest
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 1978826702
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 187

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Book Description
Singer. Dancer. Movie star. Activist. Queer icon. Afrofuturist. Working class heroine. Time traveler. Prophet. Feminist. Android. Dirty Computer. Janelle Monáe is all these things and more, making her one of the most fascinating artists to emerge in the twenty-first century. This provocative new study explores how Monáe’s work has connected different media platforms to strengthen and enhance new movements in art, theory, and politics. It considers not only Monáe’s groundbreaking albums The ArchAndroid, The Electric Lady, and Dirty Computer, but also Monáe’s work as an actress in such films as Hidden Figures and Antebellum, as well as her soundtrack appearances in socially-engaged projects ranging from I May Destroy You to Us. Examining Monáe as a cultural icon whose work is profoundly intersectional, this book maps how she is actively reshaping discourses around race, gender, sexuality, and capitalism. Tracing Monáe’s performances of joy, desire, pain, and hope across a wide range of media forms, it shows how she imagines Afrofuturist, posthumanist, and postcapitalist utopias, while remaining grounded in the realities of being a Black woman in a white-dominated industry. This is an exciting introduction to an audacious innovator whose work offers us fresh ways to talk about identity, desire, and power.

How Long 'til Black Future Month?

How Long 'til Black Future Month? PDF Author: N. K. Jemisin
Publisher: Orbit
ISBN: 0316491357
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 378

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Book Description
Three-time Hugo Award winner and NYT bestselling author N. K. Jemisin challenges and delights readers with thought-provoking narratives of destruction, rebirth, and redemption that sharply examine modern society in her first collection of short fiction, which includes never-before-seen stories. "Marvelous and wide-ranging." -- Los Angeles Times"Gorgeous" -- NPR Books"Breathtakingly imaginative and narratively bold." -- Entertainment Weekly Spirits haunt the flooded streets of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In a parallel universe, a utopian society watches our world, trying to learn from our mistakes. A black mother in the Jim Crow South must save her daughter from a fey offering impossible promises. And in the Hugo award-nominated short story "The City Born Great," a young street kid fights to give birth to an old metropolis's soul.

Donna Summer's Once Upon a Time

Donna Summer's Once Upon a Time PDF Author: Alex Jeffery
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1501355473
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 145

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Book Description
Contradicting assumptions that disco albums are shallow and packed with filler, Donna Summer's double album Once Upon A Time stands out as a piece that delivers on its promise of an immaculately crafted journey from start to finish. A new interpretation of the Cinderella story, it is set in the then contemporary world of New York disco and takes the listener on a journey from urban isolation and deep despair to joy and vindication, all filtered through the mind of its naïve and fantasy-prone protagonist. As well as charting the production of the album within the legendary Munich Machine in Germany, this book digs deep into the album's rich themes and subtexts. Approaching the book from inventive angles, the four essays within the book act as a prism connecting the reader to the classical aspirations of Eurodisco, the history of the black fairy tale and a queer knowledge that reads Summer's Cinderella tale in some surprising ways.

Maria Callas's Lyric and Coloratura Arias

Maria Callas's Lyric and Coloratura Arias PDF Author: Ginger Dellenbaugh
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1501379038
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 169

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Book Description
More than 40 years after her death, the legend of Maria Callas, “La Divina Assoluta,” remains unsurpassed. Much has been written about her sensational opera career and fraught private life, from her definitive mastery of iconic opera roles to her love affairs and tantrums. The prototype for the 20th century celebrity diva, Callas emblematizes the cliche of tormented talent – genius in the ring with catastrophe. Her extraordinary voice, in particular, has become an object of cult-like adoration and cultural significance almost with a life of its own: as fetish object, as sophisticated sonic signifier, and most recently, as the lifeblood for a Callas hologram. Such adoration is not without consequences. When Callas is transformed into a vessel for such transcendent magic, it overshadows what is perhaps her most superhuman ability – the masterful technique she deployed to shape and craft her astounding instrument. Singing bodies are working bodies, enacting an intimate and complex form of artistic labor and cultural signification. Using one of Callas's first recital recordings from 1954, this book envisions each aria as a lens to examine various aspects of vocalization and cultural reception of the feminized voice in both classical and pop culture, from Homer's Sirens to Star Trek. With references to works by Marina Abramovic, Charles Baudelaire, Michel Chion, Wayne Koestenbaum, Greil Marcus, and Farah Jasmine Griffin, as well as films by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Jonathan Demme, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder, each chapter explores phenomena unique to the singing voice, including the operatic screaming point, the politics of listening, and the singing simulacrum.

Coke Machine Glow

Coke Machine Glow PDF Author: Gordon Downie
Publisher: Vintage Canada
ISBN: 0307368947
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 114

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Book Description
Gordon Downie, lead singer and lyricist for the popular Canadian rock band The Tragically Hip, released his first solo record, Coke Machine Glow in Spring 2001. Alongside the album, his first book of poetry and prose under the same title was published, including the lyrics to the sixteen songs on the record. Now, on the 20th anniversary year of Coke Machine Glow, fans have more to delight in: an audiobook of Coke Machine Glow and a brand new album by Downie, released posthumously. Coke Machine Glow is a rich, haunting collection that reveals both the public and private selves of one of Canada's most enigmatic musicians. In poetry that is urban, gritty and political, as well as romantic, nostalgic and whimsical, Downie allows us a glimpse inside his world. With his acute and observing eye, he gives us snapshots of his life, both on the road and at home; he writes of loneliness and isolation; of longing and desire; of the present and the past; of dreams and nightmares; love lost and love of family. Ultimately, this book is about the distances that bridge and separate us. Layered and deceptively simple, imbued with Downie's wit, insight, anger, compassion and rock'n'roll edge, Coke Machine Glow is a remarkable debut from a remarkable creator.

Fifty Years of the Concept Album in Popular Music

Fifty Years of the Concept Album in Popular Music PDF Author: Eric Wolfson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1501391828
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
The concept album is one of popular music's most celebrated-and misunderstood-achievements. This book examines the untold history of the rock concept album, from The Beatles to Beyoncé. The roots of the concept album are nearly as old as the long-playing record itself, as recording artists began using the format to transcend a mere collection of songs into a listening experience that takes the listener on a journey through its unifying mood, theme, narrative, or underlying idea. Along the way, artists as varied as the Moody Blues, Jimi Hendrix, Joni Mitchell, Pink Floyd, Parliament, Donna Summer, Iron Maiden, Radiohead, The Notorious B.I.G., Green Day, Janelle Monáe, and Kendrick Lamar created albums that form an extended conversation of art and music. Limits were pushed as the format grew over the subsequent eras. Seminal albums like the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the Who's Tommy, Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, stand alongside modern classics like Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville, Kendrick Lamar's good kid, "m.A.A.d city," and Beyoncé's Lemonade. Mixing iconic albums with some newer and lesser-known works makes for a book that ventures into the many sides of a history that has yet to be told-until now.