MIA

I for one refuse to listen to any new political pop music unless it contains a credible plan for tackling the budget deficit.

...people are too fucking cynical, think theyre too above it all and too clever for anything that 'believes in something'. the best way to do it now is to either do it from a pretty distant angle, be pretty opaque about it, to the point where its hard to tell if its actually that political or not, or do what mia does/did, which is hide it in lots of seemingly nonsensical lyrics, without being too brazen about it. ie dont show you believe in something TOO much.

^ this. and i'm fucking sick of it. so goddam cynical, timid and conservative.

xpost. Which is why it's best when the music itself makes the point - MIA's music is "political" even if you can't understand the lyrics (see also: Public Enemy, Ghost Town, Sandinista!). These days, a political rap over a standard beat is going to struggle.

Talking of records which have avoided punishing scrutiny, Bombs Over Baghdad (Pitchfork's song of the decade no less) is far crasser in its use of political metaphor than anything MIA has done, but I don't remember anyone giving Outkast shit for it. I love that song - I just wonder why people don't question the validity and tact of using aerial bombardment as a metaphor for pulling your "thang".

you can't match a love like mine - it's like tryna rob me with a bb gun
but my love gets it poppin like the taliban
*gunshots*

(the-dream, "sex intelligent")

one of my favourites was NERD saying that lapdance was about politicians. which i thought was pretty wtf/stfu at the time but now im a bit more sympathetic. just cos i like the concept. even though its bullshit. the dream is just wilfully moronic. this thread should be allowed to exist without discussing terius.

i remember when jennifer capriati requested "b.o.b." as her entrance music for a match in miami, because she wanted to "show support for the troops" loooool. in response a tennis columnist sniffed that "capriati's unregenerate vulgarity is the worst-kept secret in the sport"

simply mentioning things that happen to have political significance != making political music. i mean, clipse roll deep like the hutus, but it's ridiculous to say they're making any kind of political point.

rappers love quoting/referencing political stuff, esp when its gruesome/violent (eg - bob, clipse's hutu line, various rappers talking about the taliban), they divorce it from the politics really.

simply mentioning things that happen to have political significance != making political music. i mean, clipse roll deep like the hutus, but it's ridiculous to say they're making any kind of political point.

― good news if you wear cargo shorts (contenderizer), Thursday, July 15, 2010 6:29 AM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

also, water: wet

it's getting old, deej

Aren't Green Day kind of the counter example here? I thought American Idiot was their big 00s political album and people lapped that shit up!

http://www.cokemachineglow.com/record_review/5514/mia-maya-2010

This is a spectacularly vindictive review. It reads like the guy personally detests her.

What about System of a Down? Weren't they supposed to be a political band?

Had you heard of the Armenian Genocide of 1915 before System of a Down told you?

Yeah, Green Day and SOAD are both good examples, though I don't think of them as getting a free pass in these circles. And yeah, I knew nothing about the Armenian genocide before I interviewed SOAD.

This is a spectacularly vindictive review. It reads like the guy personally detests her.

true, but it's also a interesting and insightful piece of criticism. though i strongly disagree with the writer's overall assessment, i enjoyed reading what he had to say. it even helped me understand the album a bit better. which doesn't excuse the raging, misplaced contempt, but everybody's got their axe to grind...

Well it's certainly not dull, but it didn't give me any insight at all, except into the psyche of an angry, angry man.

ok no apologies for linking to HRO for like the third time on this thread, coz this contains the sentence "Wish I had a metaphorical ‘full table.’"

http://altreport.hipsterrunoff.com/2010/07/diplo-goes-on-record-calls-m-i-a-a-lazy-rich-careless-human-being.html

Excellent work shoehorning Dostoevsky and Borges in there, angry young man.

it's allllll about rich four four's review. everything has been worth it for the sake of this coming into existence http://fourfour.typepad.com/fourfour/2010/07/a-collage-for-a-collage.html

i wonder if cokemachine guy realises that the one song he likes but calls 'undeniably trite' wasn't written by her. least he could do is read the Wiki before he goes off on one.

We are all hopelessly linked, infamous truffle fries.

^^^^ truth

On records past M.I.A. was still alluding broadly to meaning—tellingly political, one of the easiest ways to seem relatable without actually saying anything, like any successfully galvanizing speech, though muddled and often contradictory—but I, and most listeners I’d venture, were more than willing to fill in the gaps of her argument with the energy of the dancefloor.

woah nelly. this is dude's second sentence. now, i loves me a good parenthetical dashy thing -- use it all the time -- but what in fuck is going on here? it's too long for a dashy bit and idk what dude even means. or what meaning he is alluding to.

Well it's certainly not dull, but it didn't give me any insight at all, except into the psyche of an angry, angry man.

well, sure, he's an angry dick. no argument. but i think he's also kinda OTM about the glazed, disconnected, self-obsessed nature of the album, and how alienating that probably makes it for a lot of listeners. MIA's always been a sloganeer, and her slogan has always been "MIA", but on the new album, most of the joy drops out, leaving this weird, paranoid, inward-looking shell. the album cover and lead off "message" paint an accurate portrait of what MAYA has in store. and that's no big insight, but angryman's review helped bring all that into focus for me - in this moment, at least.

re the 2nd sentence: yeah, lol. in reading that, i yadda'd out the gibberish parenthetical.

At the risk of sounding like another kind of dick, that's pretty much exactly the gist of my Q review (not online so nobody's read it): "Obsessed with enemies, real and imagined, M.I.A. has begun to encase herself in armour which threatens to squeeze out her previous capacity for warmth and celebration." It's a point that can be made without sounding like a psychopath.

I see that angry cokemachineglow guy's review of !!! includes imagined dialogue, which is one dreadful reviewing gimmick I'm glad Pitchfork grew out of.

rich four four's is amazing. That's the ultimate consensus review.

holy shit that four four thing!

"I feel as if I’m breaking up with my girlfriend of three years."

man, I would be so much more into that FourFour piece if it wasn't hyperlinked (although I know it needs to be); reading all of that formatted that way gives me a headache

(also lol, sorry Jess)

http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd120/hipsterrunoff/photographs/hro/644005c6.jpg

i do not enjoy reading hipster runoff. it is like kim jong il.

lol

Right now my main complaint about this album is that it chickens out halfway through and gets really slushy and nonabrasive without having anything really interesting or compelling to back up easing off the intensity of the music. Maybe no one else wants an entire album of "Teqkilla" but I really, really do.

kim jong il is the greatest writer in the world

man, I would be so much more into that FourFour piece if it wasn't hyperlinked (although I know it needs to be); reading all of that formatted that way gives me a headache

― HI DERE, Thursday, 15 July 2010 13:43 (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

haha running my cursor over it randomly was my favourite thing about it!

Ha! I'm the exact opposite. Can't stand Teqkilla and only grow to love the album from Story to Be Told onwards. I like the vulnerability. Obviously I was never a big enough Skinny Puppy fan.

I'm actually trying to think of a better analogue than Skinny Puppy because the music on this is a good bit brighter than the sound palette they worked with; there's definite harshness going on but none of the menace.

lol I am making it sound like Nitzer Ebb, aren't I?

"Truffle I'm Here"

FORCE IS MACHINE
I LOVALOT
ALLAH

"teqkilla" was the only track i felt like i might want to play again (and that only after listening to the nicki minaj remix)

"lovalot" was definitely the nadir

Okay, you disliked "Lovalot" more than "It Iz What It Iz"????????????????

like, how is that even possible

Actually "Violent Playground" kinda IS the MIA aesthetic summed up in two words there, Dan.

ha yeah I was thinking that

maybe by "it iz what it iz" i was just drifting elsewhere, i don't remember it whereas i distinctly recall cringing at how bored she sounded on "lovalot"

it's seriously terrible, rivalling "It Takes A Muscle" for worst song on the album

kind of lolling at Diplo being all "I'm the only one doing any quality control on her" when his two tracks are easily among the worst on the album

i dont think shes bored. more just tired. or weary. or unhappy. all qualities which dont necessarily = bad music.

ha I was going to roll my eyes hardcore at Nicki Minaj being the gateway into "Teqkilla" and then I heard the verse excerpted on a Youtube video and srsly this is the first thing I've heard of hers that's been unambiguously great

Tell me why some people hate Tell Me Why.

some people just like to moan about stuff cos its fun.