M.I.A. - KALA

upon first listen this is boring compared to arular. what happened to the rhythms?!

uh hello, world town???

Hahaha what?

bird flue? $20? XR2????

"$20" is kind of boring.

also lacks those annoying 'skits', thank god

Also, she comes across as a bit annoying herself in that new pitchfork interview.
not as annoying as the writer who was like "boo hoo i had really great questions planned but she hijacked the interview to talk about something important to her." shut up!

True, and besides, it seems the only planned question the interviewer gets out was WHAT WAS IT LIKE WORKING WITH SUPERSTAR PRODUCER TIMBALAND? which, given her entire rant about people associating her with her established male collaborators at the beginning of the interview, makes me think he's kinda dense.

Also, she comes across as a bit annoying herself in that new pitchfork interview.

omg i like the album less already!!

Yeah given the relative consistency of ideas across the album I'm assuming MIA had most of the initial inspiration and then fed it to her producers to work magic out of.

Anyone got a list of who produced what, by the way?

attn DJ's: mix "Down River" by M.I.A.----> "Radio Fireworks" by Surkin

up the rpm, of course.

Anyone got a list of who produced what, by the way?

in her pfork she begrudgingly gave most of the credit to switch:

On this album I self-produced most of the album with Switch, and nobody's talking about that. And it's because Switch doesn't really talk it up, or he's not into self-promotion like that. Switch spent a year with me making my record and I'm really surprised how he doesn't really come across as the person that I've relied on most. I don't know, I just wanted to set the record straight and make sure that credit goes to people, where it's due, I guess. Last time I set out in America, I probably saw Diplo once.

Forget the Switch/Diplo shit...Timbaland listening to Celine Dion?!?!? OH NOES!

Was bumping this in the car today.

AWE$OME

That quote doesn't sound begrudging to me - it seems like she's saying people should talk about Switch's involvement more.

I really like the idea of her choosing to work with Switch (based on "Boyz" the execution is ace as well) - it seems like such a counter-intuitive-but-intuitive choice.

Diplo and M.I.A. seem to fit on this kind of abstract music crit article level where both are seen as these jetsetting diaspora celebrities mining the world's disparate cultures to create a handy phrasebook guide to the international language of booty. I think this is part of why people succumb to overestimating Diplo's role.

Whereas Switch would appear to be doing something quite different, but then you think about his actual sonic approach and it fits M.I.A. hand-in-glove. With Switch you don't get that theoretical angle that Diplo brings to the table, it's just "we'll use anything from anywhere" as part of a program of sensory overload.

And I say this while only liking Switch's own stuff some of the time.

Is this the "Boyz" that everyone is talking about?
http://pitchforkmedia.imeem.com/video/GnalkB_z/boyz/

Christ, this is horrible. it sounds like someone who was making a bollywood soundtrack got an aneurysm before completing the song, and somehow the exploding synapses in their brain splattered all over their sequencer. Anyone who likes this should probably explore bollywood music. there's good stuff out there-- much better than this, anyway.

OK, "Paper Planes" TOTALLY samples The Clash's "Straight to Hell."

"it sounds like someone who was making a bollywood soundtrack got an aneurysm before completing the song, and somehow the exploding synapses in their brain splattered all over their sequencer."

I'm sorry, you've confused "horrible" with "awesome," even though you gave a passable explanation.

"Anyone who likes this should probably explore bollywood music. there's good stuff out there-- much better than this, anyway."

And while you're at it, anyone who likes "$20" should probably explore this thing called rock music! There's good stuff out there!

Also, house and hip hop and dancehall! There's good stuff out there too!

I'm just glad someone else didn't like "boyz".

And he even gave better reasoning for not liking it than I did

Haha M.I.A. always brings the trolls out.

I can't wait to download this and be completely baffled by M.I.A. AGAIN.

I have no idea why but suddenly I was thinking that M.I.A.'s closest forebear might be Kate Bush. I wish I knew WHY I thought that, but it seems to be something to do with conceptual reach and treatment of source materials as opposed to actual sound. Probably just something random based on the rhetoric on this thread.

Ha ha Ned upthread I said:

""Boys" and "Bird Flu" remind me of Kate Bush's "The Dreaming" more than anything else."

:-D Then I was unconsciously channeling you, good sir. But without wanting to force a parallel too much, I'm wondering if there isn't more to it in the sense not just of creative independence (and associated perceptions on the part of an audience vis-a-vis female artists) but 'English' identity. M.I.A. will never sing "Oh England My Lionheart" (if anything Sinead's "Black Boys on Mopeds" is more apropos) and yet she strikes me as *very* English for all that she is working and identifying with a wider world consciousness. If that makes sense.

"Also, she comes across as a bit annoying herself in that new pitchfork interview."

no she comes across as someone who raises some important points.

A lot of the songs here and on Arular question whether one can even believe in identity politics when that great, big world outside, whether it's terrorism or lots of fine import records, keeps impinging.

She sure sounds a bit ranty and unhinged in that Pitchfork interview. Considering how much love she gets from music critics, it comes off kind of weird. Bad breakup with Diplo maybe??

Perhaps she's just not willing to accept the fact that women can't make or distribute music without help from men?

She sure sounds a bit ranty and unhinged in that Pitchfork interview. Considering how much love she gets from music critics, it comes off kind of weird. Bad breakup with Diplo maybe??

-- Moodles, Saturday, August 4, 2007 7:19 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

good call! or maybe it was her time of the month!

Yeah, the pancakes were a tip off

the interview is a bit off-putting (and calling attention to her myspace rant doesn't help her case). perhaps she reads too much of her own press - i definitely read sutff about diplo, but i certainly didn't have the impression that she was anything less than a full partner in arular. that may still not be given her not enough credit, but it's far from being a puppet.

she's probably just pissed b/c her ex gets credit for her breakthrough.

anyway, i still like the album (and much better than arular)

Okay listening to this now: she's totally making up the lyrics as she goes along, which I'm leaning towards being a good thing.

Re Timbaland's teepee line, is deliberately confusing the two "Indians" a rap meme or something?

I don't mean to be rude with my breakup comment, I just think she seems oddly angry at Diplo. Is it really true that he had no hand whatsoever in her sound? And didn't she first get recognition because of his mixtape?

And if she thinks that more women should make and distribute music without the help of men, that is perfectly reasonable. But I don't think anyone is saying that women can't do that or shouldn't or that she can't. I also don't think that she's somehow been overshadowed by Diplo or anyone else. In fact, she's been the object of fawning praise, so I really don't get what she is so angry about.

"Galang" first emerged at the end of 2003 or so didn't it? Did M.I.A. and Diplo even know each other at that stage?

I always got the impression he was only involved in "Bucky Done Gun" and "U.R.A.Q.T." on Arular - and which fittingly dabble in funk carioca and baltimore beat respectively. I could imagine Diplo introducing M.I.A. to those sounds, but she hardly would have needed Diplo to explain dancehall to her (and dancehall forms the stylistic backbone of that album).

she hardly would have needed Diplo to explain dancehall to her

Wow, now I'm imagining the bizarre world where Diplo DID need to explain dancehall to her. It must be the same world where Dave Marsh explains house music to Derrick May.

because m.i.a. invented dancehall?!? i have no problem believing diplo knows more about it than her

I have no problem assuming they were both fanatics already!

i thought m.i.a. learned about rap music from peaches

She learned about it from me, which was a mistake given my assumptions about dancing in America. :-/

This is all beside the point, the real question is whether its Boyz or Paper Planes that is the unstoppable heat-seeking perfectly contrived summer pop song for me this year.

At the moment I'm going for Boyz solely for the "how ya doin? Pukka bounce" bit.

It's "What We Do Now? Dapper Dance"

lol summer pop song

My problem with Boyz is that it starts out so promising and then her vocals basically smother anything interesting about the beat with that corny nursery rhyme rhythm.

Which is also the problem with Bird Flu

lol summer pop song

Well the sun has only just come out over here so us Britishes are probably getting carried away.

lol 'baltimore beat'

I kinda understand where she's coming from and it did always seem like she pretty much had her first album done and her whole sound in place before she met Wes Gully, but it does really just come off like sour grapes personal shit that noone in the public needs to hear. Reacting too extremely to the whole "noone thinks I can do anything on my own because I'm a woman" thing is how we get situations like crazy-ass Lauryn Hill not giving any credit/money to people who worked on her album because she's paranoid about people thinking Wyclef is more talented than her.

I almost started liking "$20" today. If I hear it a few more times, I will probably love it.

My problem with Boyz is that it starts out so promising and then her vocals basically smother anything interesting about the beat with that corny nursery rhyme rhythm.

I sort of agree with you WRT Bird Flu but surely Boyz is all about the nursery rhyme rhythm with both the beats and the vocals. It's the fact they're so intertwined with one another that gives the song its momentum - Boyz = glam rock essentially.

"Boyz" is far from the least interesting song -- "XR2" strikes me as the album's dullest retread; and I haven't yet gotten "Mango Pickle Down River," which sounds like Musical Youth stuck in Bollywood so not entirely charmless.