Janelle Monáe'sDirty ComputerMusic Video/Film: A Collective Reading

Abstract

WILLIAM GIBBONS and DANA GORZELANY-MOSTAK, Media Review Editors The Media Reviews section of this issue of the Journal of the Society for American Music takes the form of a cluster of brief analytical essays devoted to the multimedia concept album Dirty Computer (2018), by the American musician, actress, and producer Janelle Monáe (b. 1985). These essays emerge from "Picturing Performance: Reenvisioning the Arts," a course led by Carol Vernallis at Stanford University in the spring of 2018. Originally conceived for digital publication, the essays have been edited by both Dr. Vernallis and the JSAM multimedia editors into their present form. Since this experimental form constitutes a significant departure from the Journal's standard practice, the editors felt that a brief introduction and explanation was warranted. Aside from providing readers with information about new multimedia releases and useful digital resources, we have in recent years had two overarching goals for the Media Reviews section of JSAM: 1) the exploration of the relationship between music and our perpetually evolving media landscape; and 2) the pedagogical utility of musical multimedia. In addition to exploring Dirty Computer's significant artistic contributions, this cluster of essays directly engages with both of these efforts. Released simultaneously as a music album and a forty-six-minute narrative "emotion picture" (to use Monáe's term) Dirty Computer-alongside other multimedia releases such as Beyoncé's Lemonade (2016)-raises intriguing questions about the extent to which its audio elements can be extracted from its visual components, and more broadly, about the nature of the "album" itself. Moreover, the essays contained in this section illustrate how the analysis of musical multimedia can provide material for rich classroom discussions and projects, as well as how student work can extend outside the classroom and connect with a larger audience. We hope that JSAM, and the Media Reviews section more broadly speaking, can become a useful space for the exploration of these ideas. To that end, we encourage those who might wish to pursue similarly innovative formats to contact the editors with ideas and suggestions.

Retracted: Space Elements of Computer Music Production Based on VR Technology

“…Digital audio processing technology is widely used in recording and music post production. Computer access and operation of information are based on binary, audio must be digitized to convert it into binary data in order to be recognized, stored and edited by the computer [23]. This processing method can not only reach the level of traditional audio processing, but also embody more powerful processing functions in digital audio editing.…”

‘Hell You Talmbout’: Janelle Monáe’s Black Cyberfeminist Sonic Aesthetics

“…The swift lyrical juxtaposition between ‘mannish’ and ‘black girl magic’ is visually accompanied by a transition from the solitary Monáe in green to a shot of her in pink standing in the centre of the dancers. Dani Oore (in Vernallis et al , 2019, p. 261) notes that ‘on the word black’, Monáe thrusts her hands forward and snaps them back, a motion repeated ‘on the first downbeat of each of the next five measures’ by Monáe and the dancers. The entire frame shakes in the wake of Monáe’s first hand thrust, perhaps ‘snapping [the audience] of the mediated fantasy’ ( ibid.…”