As Boston begins to melt and we trade in our puffers for swimsuits, I can’t think of a better time to revisit what I consider to be one of the best summer albums of all time: Janelle Monáe’s “The Age of Pleasure.”

In a sense, popular music is vapid by definition. No one would anticipate the billions of views on music videos like Justin Bieber’s “Sorry” or Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You,” because they’re...