MIA

thx a lot guyz im tryin 2 watch me spendin' and all yer talk about M.I.A. got me curious and I bought Kala and really liked it hope you're happy now i'm filing for bankruptcy

All I wanna do is [bang bang bang bang]
And a [ka-ching]
And take all your money

otm

i walked past m.i.a in dalston last night!

felt 'relevant' etc

late pass non-groundbreaking album discussion

i actually like most of the music on this but the lyrics are among the worst i've ever heard

Really? Which in particular? I've heard a lot of lyrics worse than this.

We gotta love one another
That's what the good man says
But i got too much trouble
Going on in my head

from it takes a muscle... everything just seems so trite, i mean i guess the problem is that there's very little originality in there?

tweeting me like tweetie bird on your iphone... really? what makes it worse is that xxxo is probably my favourite song on the album.

It Takes a Muscle is a cover version of a song by a Dutch band singing in a second language so that's not the best example to pick.

i like some of her lines, but in general m.i.a.'s lyrics have never functioned very well outside the music. which is ok by me, that's true of lots of people.

She always reminded me of Missy Elliott in that respect (lots of rappers, obviously, but her especially). I love Missy's music but I'm not in the market for a slim hardback volume of her lyrics.

Though I think Kala is often brilliant lyrically.

so i'm just stupid then, ha

My least favorite moment on this album: when she says "Hu Jintao" in a cringeworthy "Chinese" accent. Makes my skin crawl.

The lyrics on Lovealot in general seem to be aiming at the pseudo-political by throwing out names of famous figures and referencing the Taliban. I'm not a big fan of this strategy.

well, the song is allegedly about Dzhennet Abdurakhmanova so I'm not sure if "psuedo-political" is the right way to describe the song

btw googling her brings up lovely pictures of her burnt severed head, so be careful

Is it making an actual political point or merely signifying hardness by drawing parallels between female bombers and M.I.A.? To me, it's probably the latter, but I will admit a certain level of ignorance about the meaning behind most of her tracks.

The song isn't about her at all; she's portraying a character in it loosely based off of Abdurakhmanova

Sadly, Lovalot is one of those songs which works fine if you know what it's about but seems shockingly inept if you don't. I'm not saying it needed to be called The Ballad of Dzhennet Abdurakhmanova but that belated knowledge totally transformed the track for me.

not gonna dispute that, especially since "Sunshowers" works almost exactly the same way

It's funny to imagine that she would write a track that is somehow not about her. I mean, sure you could look at it as a character study, but it is M.I.A.'s personality that comes through the strongest. To me, she isn't trying to educate us about an interesting person, but rather using that person's story to bolster the image of M.I.A. as lyrical terrorist or whatever.

That ties into something I saw a lot in Maya reviews - the tendency to make assumptions based on an incredibly low opinion of MIA's intellect and motives and to present them as fact rather than float them as theories. Like "It's hard to believe this idiotic egotist could write a song that wasn't about being an idiotic egotist."

I had no idea the track wasn't about her and unless I'm missing something the track itself offers no clues.

Did you ever read the lyrics to "$20", Moodles, specifically the first verse?

That's the problem with it. I think if she'd thrown in one specific name, of a person or a place, to distance herself from the narrator it could be read as she (presumably) intended, as opposed to scattershot sloganeering.

I just think it is a safe assumption to think that when someone writes a song, no matter what the subject is, it is as much a reflection of themselves as it is of a larger subject matter. I don't see any reason to think this wouldn't be the case on this particular track.

In terms of MIA's self-awareness, it's worth nothing Hussel, where she allows Afrikan Boy to trump her own claims: "You think it's tough now? Come to Africa." I think she's well aware of the distance between her and genuine developing world hustlers, terrorists, etc.

Moodles, that assumption is bizarre - have you not heard of first-person character songs?

Of course I have, but why would you assume that those songs are completely divorced from the person who wrote them?

I think the lyrics on Kala are generally stronger than on Maya, but that's only a matter of degree. I don't really think any of her tracks have truly great lyrics. The tracks on Kala are more clearly situated outside of her own internal world, but even in those cases it would be odd to me to think they aren't an expression of her personality on some level.

Should say "Many of the tracks on Kala are more clearly situated..."

Well they can't be completely divorced but it doesn't mean the artist identifies with the characters. In many cases (Holiday in Cambodia, Pet Shop Boys' Shopping), the singer hates the narrator. In many others (Steve Earle's John Walker's Blues) it's an attempt at empathy. Songwriters don't just pick characters they agree with.

Sure, but whether their position is pro or con, their songwriting and lyrics are a reflection of their personality to some extent.

tweeting me like tweetie bird on your iphone

^^^this is basically the exact lyric a nicki minaj hater would come up with in order to parody minaj's worst qualities

That line is terrible but I still like that song a lot.

In the case of M.I.A., I don't know how you can listen to a song like Lovealot and not hear her personality coming through at all.

I think "you want me to be somebody that I'm really not" is the overarching message of MIA's career, let alone this album

But would you deny that she feeds into the misinterpretations of who she is?

well seeing as that is what has made her famous... no?

"you want me to be somebody that I'm really not"

...vs. Eminem's "I am whoever you say I am"?

That line is terrible but I still like that song a lot.

you really lovealot?

but I fight

Well done MIA. Or her press folks or whoever:

http://www.theeastsiderla.com/2010/08/music-promtion-covers-up-silver-lake-mural/

okay the outrage over that is amazing

I mean I am completely certain that not living there means I don't "get it" but the person complaining about the glue ruining the mural when like 3 seconds of looking at the picture makes the giant metal rod at the bottom really obvious is really cracking me up

thing is, lovealot is not a voice piece. it is presented in MIA's standard persona & language, therefore must be read (at least in part) as a self-portrait. and i don't think it's really meant to be "about" dzhennet abdurakhmanova anyway, no matter what anyone's said about it.

like a taliban trucker eating boiled-up yucca
i keep my eyes down like i'm in a black burka
been through shit yeah it's a fucker
now i say shit like shaka laka laka

this is simply maya being herself, presenting herself as she always has, and only in passing associating herself with a teenage suicide bomber like she's "in a black burka." and this is the only lyric in the song that can even be stretched to reference DA. all maya's doing here is casually associating herself with the oppressed and/or dangerous in order to present a tough & exotic image. nothing wrong with this.

is boiled-up yucca like khat?

are we really debating MIA's singing through a 'character'? Um, like most artists, she probably uses project her persona into Dzhennet to make a point. This could be to a way to humanize her, and to view her from a different vantage point than most people are used to, or it could be to clarify and focus on certain elements in MIA's own artistic persona while still maintaining an artistic detachment. Likely, it's some of both.

i like this interpretation of the song, but it's hard to find any real support in the lyrics. "like a hand-me-down sucka throwing bombs out to mecca" is the only other line that might possibly connect. so you have, what? one taliban-approved black burka and one throwaway phrase about bombing mecca, and that = a song about DA? i don't buy it. rest of the lyrics concern: unicef workers, bob marley, the FBI, poultry processing, duking foes, making tunes, saying something cool, etc. seems more like she was half-inspired by the idea of DA while writing this, but didn't quite follow through on that inspiration. so the originating idea's almost (but not quite) there in the finished song.

I can totally buy that for M.I.A., the lyrics are from the perspective of DA. For me however, it comes across mostly like word salad with some vague allusions to suicide bombers and some other stuff thrown in to show that M.I.A. has a passing knowledge of current events.

am i wrong in assuming that the "a bomber has to love up dzhen" line is supposed to sound like "obama has to...", the same way lovalot sounds like love allah?