M.I.A. - KALA

I don't want to just congratulate MIA on the back and say, "WOW Yr LYRICS ARE GLOBALLY-THEMED IS THERE A NEWSLETTRE I MAY SUBSCRIBE TO?" 'Cause that's kinda how I feel when I'm spouting about all this stuff. It's just refreshing to know that there might be some fun/interesting layers beneath all of it.

My gf doesn't know a damn thing about Gloria Estefan, so it's nice to see that Ma$e/Diddy didn't shoe-horn the sample into the song.

Oh fuck, that's right, I forgot that "Straight to Hell" was a HUGE single over here. My badz. Still trying to wrap my head around the N.Cherry comparison ... I mean, I know it's easy to confuse the two ... the DO sound totally alike ...

Yeah all those ethnic arty chicks are alike dontchyaknow!

Don't be facetious, dude, I'm not comparing her to Diamanda Galas or something.

I never said they were identical, but to pretend there are NO distinct similarities to their aesthetics and critical reception is really willful.

deej's WHY DO YOU GUYS ONLY HATE SAMPLING WHEN PUFFY AND WILL SMITH DO IT posts are pretty funny.

"I never said they were identical, but to pretend there are NO distinct similarities to their aesthetics and critical reception is really willful."

I think the similarities are largely the fact that they are non-white and female. You get a gold star for figuring that out! Woo hoo for you!

Oh wait and some critics like them both too! In fact some of the SAME critics. That's a real touchpoint there too. Can't forget that.

I can see where you're coming from, croupier, although I don't think Neneh Cherry would be anyone's first thought after hearing MIA.

Well, either way, I wouldn't mind if "Paper Planes" is MIA's "Buffalo Stance."

What was M.I.A.'s Rip Rig & Panic again?

alex in sf restating people's arguments so they're making entirely different ones is pretty funny

How exactly did I restate this "you guys all hated puffy for doing the same thing, except mase was a better rapper" so it was an entirely different argument again, deej?

Alex in SF, fighting cultural hegemony by all means necessary, on all threads necessary.

CLEAN UP THE THREADS!/CLEAN UP THE BOARDS!
CLEAN UP THE THREADS!/CLEAN UP THE BOARDS!

Catch-y, right?

Spent her young adulthood rolling with post-punkers, released an album of vaguely political dance-pop (with a not particularly dissimilar visual style) that critics jizzed their brains out over.

otm. which is enough to namedrop neneh in re: m.i.a., not that the comparison says anything in particular about how m.i.a. sounds. but it's not like a completely ridiculous thing to say. (simon reynolds' invocation of ari up is even more apt, except he meant it as an insult and i don't.)

I think its worthwhile to acknowledge when two artists share a similar cultural space or aesthetic. Especially when people are tripping over themselves to declare them an unprecedented innovator. I'm sorry if their being of the same gender is offensive to you, Alex.

How exactly did I restate this "you guys all hated puffy for doing the same thing, except mase was a better rapper" so it was an entirely different argument again, deej?

by turning it into 'you guys don't like sampling only when its done by will smith and puffy'

I feel like the big straw man is that people are jizzing their brains out over MIA because the political stuff. It's there, but I think MIA could be completely divorced from any politics and still hold up fine. It's just an added dimension that isn't usually a staple of dancey pop music.

Painting her as just another jerggoff wearing a terr'r-bandana at a Motherfucker party in the name of radical-chic doesn't really fit.

And fwiw, in the 600 posts in this thread, I don't think "innovative" has come up once. Just trying to separate slobberbloggers from, you know, what people are actually saying here.

Yeah, when I said "people" I didn't just mean ILXors. Though I don't think MIA would remotely get the same kind of press and acclaim without the political background. It's almost always the hook in any article.

when did jizzing become the shorthand for expressing any enthusiasm for a song/artist at all? i blame Freud.

I don't want to just congratulate MIA on the back

people are jizzing their brains out over MIA

cue luriqua or and what to show up and make some pervy comment about "boy i'd like to congratulate MIA on her back/jizz my brains out over MIA, amirite?"

"It's almost always the hook in any article."

Sadly OTM.

I don't want to just congratulate MIA on the back

Hmm, probably should've left 'pat' in there :/

Most of the encouraging reviews praise the orientalist/integrationist dialectic in her great songs, but it's not the same as people jizzing their brains over them. If so, the Arrested Development discussion in the P&J thread needs your help pronto.

It's almost always the hook in any article.

too bad it's also the most boring thing about her songs (i don't really care much about her lyrics, you'd be mad to).

altho i was wondering about (the death of) politics in US rap last night.

when did jizzing become the shorthand for expressing any enthusiasm for a song/artist at all? i blame Freud.

If only it was, Blueski! "I gotta admit, I kinda jizz all over that one song by Snow Patrol, at least the instrumental break."

"My mom always says she hates rap, but I caught her jizzing all over Lil Mama in the car yesterday."

I jizzed all over George Michael once.

http://www.wildsound-filmmaking-feedback-events.com/images/darling.jpg

I was superbad.

there should be more talk about DRUMS on this thread. i love drums and i love how much she loves drums. one big reason i like m.i.a. is that one of my ideas of perfect music is drums + sing-song hooks (see also "milkshake," "umbrella," etc). i can understand why people who don't consider that a form of perfect music would not like her so much.

It's not real music unless there's guitars on it.

blount?

Werd mothra. I kinda wish that the album had started w/ those drums on "Birdflu."

most of this album i find kind of annoying for some reason.

i do like that pickle song with the kids rapping. it's pretty weird!

'specially since the kids sound like they've been smoking unfiltereds for 40 years.

It's not real music unless there's guitarsit's harmonically complex and nice an' melodicon it.

Geir to thread.

(sorry...I'll get my hat and goat now)

'specially since the kids sound like they've been smoking unfiltereds for 40 years.

-- Jamesy, Tuesday, August 28, 2007 5:38 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

that's the best part! kids with gravelly voices rule.

It's not real music unless Paul McCartney wrote it.

I can't fathom how anybody can hate on this record. It's like the opposite of Arular, thank God, and since I bought it yesterday (for $7.99 new!!!) it's quickly becoming my album of 2007 or something (though Timbaland shouldn't have been allowed to rap, that comes close to ruining the whole thing)

Her fans have spoken:

"Eclectic Interscope artist M.I.A. arrives at No. 18 with her sophomore album, "Kala," which moved 29,000 units."

Timbaland shouldn't have been allowed to rap, that comes close to ruining the whole thing.

So true.

M.I.A. arrives at No. 18 with her sophomore album, "Kala," which moved 29,000 units.

Does this mean on the Billboard Albums Chart? 29k units sold gets you to No. 18 these days? Wow.

does this also mean Kala sold more in the US first week than in the UK? madness

Didn't Arular sell more in the US than the UK?

Arular barely charted on the Billboard 200.

There are a lot more people in the US than the UK, ya know.

it's not like even POPULAR British acts automatically sell more albums in the US just because there's more people to buy them.

its not 'automatic' but its not 'madness.'

What's The Story (Morning Glory) sold a bit over 4 million in the US and UK each, but it's 14 times platinum in your neck of the woods, and 4 times platinum here.

29k units sold gets you to No. 18 these days? Wow.

It takes fewer copies sold now more than ever to get a higher chart position. Some records that debuted at #1 this year sold half of what an average #1 debut was just a couple of years ago.

The register in "Paper Planes" sounds alarmingly like the one from the opening of "Are You Being Served?" -- remix better have Mr. Humphries dropping a guest verse.

Reviews keep calling this "noisy" or "jagged" or whatever, but not pegging the main thing in action. For a major-label shot at pop, you'd expect the beats to be really present and physical, the hip-hop feel where instruments sit in the foreground and have a weight to them -- and yet here they're all kind of attenuated, scraping away in the back. The first track goes on for a good while before its bottom end snaps into place. The album as a whole lets you get something like four songs in before one of them takes on the physicality (and low end) to jump into the foreground and sound like conventional pop. There was only a touch of this feeling on the last album, but it's all over this one: this technique of using the form of "beats" to make music that's not actually beat-centric, music where it's kind of like avant / home-listening "beats," beats you here and listen to even though they're not actually there in a move-to-the-beat kind of way.

remix better have Mr. Humphries dropping a guest verse.

There might be a problem with that.

her musics always been like that though. its like beats taken into that mid-frequency range so they never seem to fully settle down or lock into position.

anyone think bmore club could get quite big post-kala?