M.I.A. - KALA

I agree, Richard, you're not a troll, but you're posts upthread were pretty arrogant and presumptuous.

I have no problem with divergent points of view, but it's also pretty clear that the people on M.I.A. threads who profess to not like her music (but just as often seem not to like her for whatever reason) tend to be a nastier and more sanctimonious lot than most.

"I don't mean to be rude with my breakup comment, I just think she seems oddly angry at Diplo."

Really it seems more like she's really irrititated with journos to me.

but you're posts upthread were pretty arrogant and presumptuous.

I agree that I made strong comments, but I fail to see how this is in itself an affront. The intensity of my comment against is no stronger than the intensity of many of the comments for, and you shouldn't take my disdain for MIA's music as a personal attack, just as I don't take anyone's pity for me as MIA non-believer personally. Anyway, I don't want to drag this thread into the usual quasi-philosophical territory that controversial topics usually end up in, where people begin quoting each other out of context, start deconstructing their psyches, and eventually accusing each other of being closet racists. But I would like to impress the point that I see nothing wrong with expressing one's taste with passion. It makes things more fun.

i know i'm having fun.

hurting is otm about the vocals overpowering everything else, but 'boyz' is easily my favorite track on an album jammed with duds. i loved 'arular' but the thing that had me so smitten on that album - the rhythms - are precisely why i'm not feeling 'kala'. they seem half-baked, lacking decent hooks, and are just plain uninteresting to me. on second listen i actually skipped through the majority of the album, it just wasn't compelling to me.

yeah, souring on this big time... feel like I really need to work out (not to post it, just for my own curiousity) what, or what comibnation of things exactly it is that turns me right off about her, I have the nagging feeling no-ones ever really nailed it beyond the typical (and easily dismissable) art-school-up-her-own-arse-rebel-chic cliches...

It may be easier now, without so many agendas & inflammatory opinions swarming around this one (yet) and all the really really glaring drawbacks and obvious problems of the first having been accounted for and dealt with...

funny someone should mention Lily Allen really, it's that kind of under-the-skin hard to place personal sort of niggle that keeps me from even liking MIA (even when her beats are hot) tho' I've warmed to Lily, for one reason or another, she just seems genuinely naive and less professional than some about stuff... MIA otoh seems cold and beyond calculated (again hard to say why) and such an abscence of warmth, humanity, emotion even... in her music.

If she's SOOOOO great why am I almost never moved? Even for a 'dance' record? admittedly there are now a few melodic touches on Kala that seem to point to something deeper, but wow they were a long time coming.

Post again when I've worked it out, or probably just never again and put it down to suckage :p

Is there any dancehall on the new record?

(sorry for not reading thread)

"i loved 'arular' but the thing that had me so smitten on that album - the rhythms - are precisely why i'm not feeling 'kala'. they seem half-baked, lacking decent hooks, and are just plain uninteresting to me."

I don't get this at all, despite it being exactly what my office mate just said to me. I thought that the beats on the first album were boring as shit, just simplistic to the point of tears, and that this album was the polar opposite (I also don't get the "sparse" description of Kala, compared to Arular). I even went back and listened to Arular again, wondering if I'd just mis-remembered. No, no, Arular really did disappoint me. And I really do like Kala a whole lot more (and a whole lot on its own). What was so great about the beats on the first album? The drums were intentionally flat and bland, and the production was 8-bit thin on purpose, and it just doesn't hold up.

i have read thread and am wondering the same... (xp)

i think fandango might actually have a point re MIA's coldness. not a drawback on its own altho for this kind of music maybe it is. 'Boyz' sounds joyous but MIA never quite seems to be able to convey that herself?

that x-post is furiously OTM

yeah, there's a weird psychic gap between the content and the delivery for me, it makes me suspicious to a greater extent than all the artwork/politics/fake dancehall nonsense ever did... already got raised on the old thread by someone complaining about her 'sloganeering' (or words to that effect) but surprised it's not a more common complaint...

then again if you DO say anything disparaging you get ambushed by rabid indie-kids praising her "unique flow" (ala Joanna Newsom) and geographical uniqueitude so it's not really worth the hassle.

it matters less on this new one being vocally, more low-key/quiet strength/mixed further down, and production wise it's thicker and you can get distracted from it all anyway with ease. But I'm still really wincing, embarrassed even, lots of the time, and that's why I'm never sure she's really as sex-on-toast as everyone makes out.

that OTHER sri-lankan fake-dancehall female "rapper", from Jahcoozi, even though I think their music is more mediocre, and often sounds (or sounded) like MIA without the musical color ... don't mind her in the slightest/ MIA? I keep trying to suspend/forget my disbelief and failing totally, I'm back at square one every time.

god I hate how MANY words it takes me to get stuff out all the time ffs

/ot

she does my head in really, I guess if she "brings out the troll" it's because she's hard to like but also hard to ignore... and yeah, I'm probably better off doing the latter.

Really it seems more like she's really irrititated with journos to me.

"Diplo has got two tracks on there, Timbaland's got one track, Blaqstarr's got two tracks, but the rest of it, the bulk of it, is built out of me and Switch. And if I can't get credit because I'm a female and everything's going to boil down to 'everything has to be shot out of a man,' then I much rather it go to Switch, who did actually give me the time and actually listened to what I was saying and actually came to India and Trinidad and all these places, and actually spent time on me and actually cared about what I was doing, and actually cared about the situation I was in with not being able to get into the country and not having access to things or, you know, being able to direct this album in a totally innovative direction. I was just kind of taking what I was given, and took the circumstances I was put in. And I wanted to make the most of it. And the only person that believed in it was Switch, and he gave me the freedom to have the space and have thinking time and have the experiences or whatever and came and shared them with me."

This totally has more to do with her frustration with the producers not named Switch, who evidently did NOT care about what she was doing, did NOT care about her situation or her desire for "a totally innovative direction," etc etc etc. Journos are just guilty of constantly name-checking people she evidently feels are doing right by her (and if journos are imply she's their puppet I'd kinda like to see some examples, most pieces seem pretty fawning to me).

evidently feels AREN'T doing right by her, I mean.

I'm not shocked that Timbaland wouldn't go to Trinidad with her though, I mean, come on, he's got Timberlake beats to cook up

I've heard eight songs off this album. I like three and find the rest boring.

I really didn't like "Come Around" until the "beat goes on" bit got stuck in my head today and now I think I really dig it, along with "Bamboo Banger" and "Bird Flu" and "Boyz" and "World Town" and "XR2" and "Paper Planes"

but not "Jimmy" and "Hussel" and "Mango Pickle Down River" and "The Turn"

"$20" is just OK

dunno if this has been posted but, jimmy: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Sjam_ygv69Y

the video for mia's cover is pretty sweet too

there's a weird psychic gap between the content and the delivery for me, it makes me suspicious to a greater extent than all the artwork/politics/fake dancehall nonsense ever did

most insightful post on thread so far by a degree of like infinity.

well done.

ha, that Jimmy Ajaa video is grebt! (i didn't know it was a cover, though it's not suprising)

sorry, aaja

so JIMMY is blates BONEY M right?

Yeah, I can't believe how much so, even the video kind of alludes to this with some of the costumes.

How old was M.I.A in '92 ?

like 15

then again if you DO say anything disparaging you get ambushed by rabid indie-kids praising her "unique flow"

where does this happen???

Don't challenge the hataz' persecution complexes with reason.

I'm surprised people are finding her such a barrier to their enjoyment of this record considering she's either buoyed along or almost drowned out by the sheer flurry of noise on a lot of these tracks. She lacks the vocal presence* or ability to really dominate any of the beats here (well, maybe some of the sparser ones and she can't even do that very well). There are a few tracks, like XR2 for example, when she's subdued to the point of being ignorable. Luckily the rest of what's going on is so good it more than compensates.

*Not for want of trying, MIA seems to be short on presence generally. One of the reasons I've never fully got into the live shows is because she lacks stage presence and the whole setup gives the impression she's doing karaoke to her own songs.

Tim I'm disappointed!

well, I already said that she's much LESS of a barrier on this one, so I personally enjoy it a lot more.

even if she is sometimes still stuck in some weird interzone between "creative, unique, experimental" indie-rap and actual pop music that, frankly, doesn't do that much for me.

Fandango, it's not that this record is amazing, it's just that people who dislike it seem to act as though they've been hung out to dry by everyone else. You always give a slightly different impression, like you're hanging yourself out to dry or something...

Live shows lack stage presence???? whatevs

two dance moves: step right, slide left foot to join. repeat, repeat, repeat. and: do choo-choo train with hype-girl.

yeah i thought she was fine live when i saw her ages ago - i mean what do you want for what is basically just an MC + laptop dude further back?

popjustice say they think it sounds like BONEY M too sw00ds, it's not just us.

i mean what do you want for what is basically just an MC + laptop dude further back?

For the MC to have stage presence!

which entails what exactly? beyond dancing a bit and talking to the crowd a bit (which she did do)?

yeah i've seen her twice and been totally mystified by all the complaints about "presence." shes fun, she gets the crowd dancing, she talks to us, cuet backup dancers. i dont know what you all are looking for.

Finally downloaded this from Slsk, like it based on 1st listen. Bit disappointed with $20 though, after hearing about Blue Monday sample + Pixies etc although it's OK I suppose.

Never seen her live so can't comment on that.

"I don't read, I just guess" = Mondays, right?

Interesting Xgau album review from the new Rolling Stone:

Careerwise, the recent album M.I.A.'s Kala recalls is Kanye West's Late Registration -- an unexpectedly sure-footed follow-up to a brainy beat-adept's can-you-top-this debut. And though West is the more universal musician, especially as Americans conceive the universe, there are also musical similarities: Both albums challenge sophomore slump by risking pretension. But where West hired classically trained Jon Brion, the Sri Lankan-British rapper spread out and bent down low. Originally she'd hoped to trade the grimy beats of 2005's Arular for the more radio-friendly dirt of Timbaland. That plan fizzled, for two reasons -- not just the feds' refusal to let M.I.A. re-enter the U.S., but her instinctive reluctance to turn into Nelly Furtado once the chance was in her lap.
Plus, though she's polite about it, a sneaking suspicion that maybe Timbo wasn't all that -- that there were edgier beat-makers all over the place. With visa madness blockading her new Brooklyn apartment, she turned world traveler, pulling in multiple Indian musics and encompassing Jamaican dance-hall moves,Indian-Trinidadian multicontinental mash-up, Liberian vibes, a British-Nigerian rapper, Australian aboriginal hip-hop, Baltimore hip-hop, Jonathan Richman, the Clash and a bonus afterthought from Timbaland's solo album. Though she claims this record is more personal and less political than Arular, that's misleading. The political was all too personal on an album obsessed with her long-lost father, a player in Sri Lanka's terrorist-revolutionary Tamil Tigers. Here, that conflict-ridden relationship is behind her. Star access enables a woman who grew up an impoverished refugee to observe the outcomes of similar histories in immigrant and minority communities worldwide. If you don't think that's political, ask your mama -- or hers, who's named Kala.

Arular was about M.I.A. -- her ambition, her education, her contradictions, her history of violence. Kala is about the brown-skinned Other now obsessing Euro-America -- described from the outside by a brown-skinned sympathizer who's an insider for as long as her visa holds up. It opens with the uninvitingly spare "Bamboo Banga," which samples Indian Tamil filmi composer Ilayaraja and bends the lyric of Richman's "Roadrunner" so it celebrates a kid running alongside a Third World tourist's Hummer and banging on its door. "BirdFlu" disses dogging males everywhere -- "selfish little roamers" -- over another filmi sample and a barely synchronized four-four on some thirty deep-toned urmi drums. Also on "BirdFlu," high kiddie/girlie interjections add a cuteness that's sustained pitchwise on "Boyz," with its video of synchronized Kingston rudies shaking their moneymakers for the Interscope dollar. Only with "Jimmy," a Bollywood disco number a kiddie M.I.A. used to dance to for money at Sri Lankan parties, does a conventional song surface.

You've probably gathered that unlike Late Registration, Kala is less pop-friendly than its predecessor. It's heavier, noisier, more jagged. Timbaland might conceivably have found a hit for M.I.A.; London-based "dirty house" producer Switch, credited on eight of twelve tracks, will not. The eclectic world-underclass dance amalgam M.I.A. has constructed is an art music whose concept recalls the Clash as much as anything else -- the aggression of the early Clash and the reach of the late (who she samples). But soon enough, the music does soften and, occasionally, give up a tune. There's melancholy melodica, Sri Lankan temple horn, the eighteen-year-old rapper Afrikanboy describing his hustles, and several child choruses, notably on "Mango Pickle Down River," where preteens rap about bridges and fridges to rhyme with the didge -- didgeridoo -- that provides their groaning bass.

But none of these pleasures comes as easy as the high spirits of M.I.A.'s debut album seemed to promise. And in the end, that's why Kala strikes deep. There's a resolute sarcasm, a weariness and defiant determination, a sense of pleasure carved out of work -- articulated by the lyrics, embodied by the music. A riot of human, musical and mechanical sounds bubbles underneath these tracks. Not a white riot, that's for sure, and not a dangerous one either -- unless you believe every Other wants what you got and has nothing to offer in return. Kala proves what bullshit that is. The danger is all the evil fools who aren't convinced.

ROBERT CHRISTGAU

Man that's a long review from him.

(or did he have to pay for webspace when it was on his site, and now he's paid by wordcount?)

what's the guardian on about here? :

It was US bloggers who gave her a leg up, after the British media initially found her too hipster..
__

http://music.guardian.co.uk/urban/story/0,,2150297,00.html

running around in '92 going to raves and doing pills = SHE IS 35 YEARS OLD

i mean credit to her because she looks and acts ten years younger really

The eclectic world-underclass dance amalgam M.I.A. has constructed is an art music whose concept recalls the Clash as much as anything else

I think this is interesting.

I was thinking the other day while listening to Straight to Hell that I couldn't think of anyone who really addressed globalisation in their lyrics at the moment, which seemed odd given that it seems a more prominent concept than it would have been when the Clash wrote those lyrics. Maybe I just haven't heard stuff, though.

I mean there must be a million people whose biography reflects the rupture and dislocation and exploitation that global capital has brought about and also have access to the equally global means of distribution of music or whatever. I'm surprised there isn't more stuff documenting/evoking all this, especially from that perspective, rather than from the other end, although it doesn't seem to be that big a lyrical topic even for your Coldplay types.

Again, probably my ignorance.

And M.I.A. has a Straight to Hell-sampling song... THE CIRCLE IS COMPLETE

(Haven't heard new album, just thinking aloud)

Yeah, well that's what got me thinking ...

I guess it's not even worth mentioning at this late date, but I *wish* Timbaland didn't have to take a verse. "Come Around" could've been the best track-- take out that middle portion and get a little focus/extend on the outro and it would've been a banger. At the same time, I think the album turned out great w/o Diplo/Timbaland/Big-Name producer stamps all over it. Great album either way. She does a fabulous job floating in her lyrics on "Paper Planes."

Is there any over-arching connection with the song-quotes?