MIA

reposting for those who maybe missed it last night/the first time around:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MROxPK18v5I

I enjoy the presentation but that sound is atrocious and I dunno how much to blame that on the rip vs. how much to blame that on the "song" itself. I mean, I don't even hear the drums at all, just a blur of white noise

okay so if you don't hear the drums I would actually blame that on your ears

I dunno man, from about a minute in on I can't differentiate the snare or the kick from whatever white noise generator Rev is playing

So what?!

It's a performance on television captured on YouTube.

kick does get buried, there's maybe a snare in there somewhere (?), and the cymbals cut through easy. i can't complain abt the sound, cuz the energy comes across fine.

I guess my point is it sounds like shit!

but yeah clip on youtube, so no need for alarm

MIA does power electronics

MIAzbow?

a little bit!

teqkilla's starting to sound like the best track on the album

in light the "where is my mind" biting on kala and the pixies-reminiscent gtr on "meds & feds", i'm idly wondering whether maya's a fan. which speculation tempts me to posit MAYA as a kind of surfer rosa rework of her established sound. like, taking something familiar and basically pop, breaking it to pieces, and pushing all the most jagged elements to the fore. again, adrian sherwood's probably a more meaningful touchstone for that kind of activity in club music, but "rock music" seems like an equally important reference point wr2 this particular album. xtrmntr (again again) being the/an intersection of the two.

^ ridiculous comparison, i know

We know.

teqkilla's starting to sound like the best track on the album

it's one of the best, for sure. reviews i've read that single it out for scorn just leave me smh.

i wasn't sure what to make of it at first. it's long, seemingly unstructured and noisy as hell, so it doesn't surprise me that some see it as a dealbreaker. especially if they have no noise tolerance and/or haven't taken the time to really come to grips with the album.

I talked to my friend last night who had just bought it and she seemed disappointed...she thought it sounded very American & commercial. I think the implication was that she thought it was MIA's "sellout" album!

hahaha

I'm failing to see how any record that gets people mentioning Skinny Puppy and Merzbow can be a commercial/sellout record.

why do pop artists still think it's cool or interesting to have a bunch of people dressed like them onstage all the time

I thought it was cool.

oh ok

I'm ever older than Maya though so what do I know about cool :(

(xp to onimo) i don't think she listens to much Merzbow or SP so I don't think she quite made that connection...

Yeah I mean people on here & elsewhere on the Internet say how noisy it is (in places) then someone disconnected thinks it's a sellout album and it seems weird that they're discussing the same album.

I think some people may be having a hard time coming to grips with the lack of a "world" dance vibe on this new album. Kala in particular had a real globetrotting feel to it. That's not what this new one is about.

The world vibe is of course seen as more "authentic".

^yeah, actually...my friend is a really good and intelligent person, and she even has decent musical tastes, but she described Kala as being "really jungle"...

(which is why she preferred it to the new one)

"really jungle"

If only. M.I.A. needs to get with Zomby and start planning out that Jungle revival record.

Diplo piles on with more criticism

http://www.blackbookmag.com/article/diplo-on-mias-new-album-she-didnt-care-about-it/20686

CORRECTION and APOLOGY: It didn’t make sense to us that Diplo would say M.I.A. had “no talent in any aspect,” but after listening to the recording of the phone interview repeatedly, it was our conclusion. It turns out that conclusion was wrong. What Diplo, who was speaking very quickly, actually said was that M.I.A., has “got” talent in every aspect, which makes a lot more sense to us. Apologies to both Diplo and to M.I.A. We will now perform 40 lashes upon ourselves in repentance.

lol

m.i.a. has yes men?

But besides that I think she’s amazing and she’ll put another record out that’s going to be fuckin’ sick because I think she needs to get grounded at some point

I still have yet to hear this thing but from the responses it's getting, it seems to scream "transitional record!"

Too bad John Cusack's too old to play Diplo in the movie

I GO STICKY STICKY ICKY ICKY WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

or is it weed, not I'm second-guessing

lol I am terrible at lyrics even when they are written in the CD liner notes

I think it's Icky Icky Icky P'tang

sticky icky icky wii

I haven't stopped playing this thing. Suddenly the last 100 hours of this thread seems irrelevant.

*seem

I think some people may be having a hard time coming to grips with the lack of a "world" dance vibe on this new album. Kala in particular had a real globetrotting feel to it. That's not what this new one is about.

yeah, this. though the rhythms and rhythmic emphasis are still there, it seems much less like dance music than anything she's done so far, and the "exotic" detailing is almost entirely gone. overall vibe is kinda rock.

it is more of a rock album, for sure, but it's still pretty funky. i had it on loud last night while i was doing household stuff and there was a lot of stuff that made me want to jump around. even the spacey, dubbier stuff mostly had grooves. the adrian sherwood mentions upthread are obviously otm, and overall again it makes me think her most obvious precedent is punk/postpunk of the ari up/jah wobble axis.

(an axis that also includes the sandinista-era clash, obv., all of which helps explain to me why i love her so much.)

^^^word!

it makes me think her most obvious precedent is punk/postpunk of the ari up/jah wobble axis.

an axis I can believe in. seriously this is only sounding better and better...

my only beef with this album is that the two lulls ("Story To Be Told" through "It Iz What It Iz" and "Tell Me Why" through "Space") are really fucking dire

I can't rate this album as highly as the first two because of that, even though I really, really REALLY love the "XXXO"/"Teqkilla"/"Lovalot" sequence

^^^ This, but with the highs and lows almost entirely reversed. (I think we can agree on Born Free)