MIA

"xxxo" is abrasive?

yeah - harsh tones, angular construction, awkward vocals. it abuts my ears.

get that it's being all smooth & poppy w/in the framework of her sound

not getting how "sounds like annie" and "abrasive" come into play together... other than maybe at the OG "sounds like lady gaga"

who is, of course, all the fuck over US pop radio

i was just listening thru my laptop speakers but it didn't sound that abrasive, will listen on headphones when the cdq leaks

production is pretty abrasive. like, frantically cluttered to the point of abrasion.

yeah, i guess it's not much more abrasive than gaga, but gaga does a better job of making the harshness part of the pop. here the jaggedy bits stick out as obstacles. not criticizing or saying i don't like it - the more i listen the more i do. but i would place no money on this being as big as paper planes. not that i'm any kind of pop psychic.

I can't really get into anything beyond Paper Planes... she had some ultrafuckinggreat-creative-spark and then subsequently lost in on everything she made thereafter.

this isn't really that abrasive... i mean maybe the drums? but i mean, american radio still plays new beats by swizz beatz, so idk

there are like a gazillion pretty distorted synth lines going off every half-second

is it really more abrasive than david guetta beats?

i'd say so. i don't know, what popular abrasive david guetta beats are you thinking of?

every single one -- i find "sexy bitch" to be incredibly loud & off putting

i've often compared listening to david guetta to getting beat in the head w/ a sledgehammer

so xxxo is kind of a jam in spite of her

sexy bitch's chorus has that kinda distorted pinball synth but it's cooled by the minimal arrangement. xxxo is bursting at the seams with different sounds, drums switch up in a lot of jagged, fractured ways. it's not harsh blog house but definitely less palatable than dg. maybe not that much less, though, and i would be thrilled for it to be a hit.

it is pretty bloghouse

don't really get the david guetta comparison. "sexy bitch" is loud, but in a way that's more propulsive & tense than actually abrasive. and i guess there's something harsh about the clanging synth in "i gotta feeling", but it doesn't get in the way of the pop, and there's still plenty of room in the mix. in comparison, "xxxo" is nearly noize. angsty static beats, samples of what sounds like breaking glass, a shrill edge to every element.

i'm not comparing it to "xxxo" -- just saying that i think there are things that i classify as "abrasive" that get played on american radio

i.e. swizz beatz

damn, I forgot about "Hit That". such a banger!

^^^^^ "tap-tap-tap that bed to the wall"!

i had no idea that "paper planes" interpolated anything, clash or wreckx-n-effect, until this thread!

how have you never heard "Rump Shaker"?!

^^^

i have heard "rump shaker", i just never clocked that it was an interpolation!

i haven't heard whatever clash song it is though (neither do i have an interest in doing so)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymfE1MOTXDk

that is barely a wrecks n effect reference. "all i wanna do is" is a reference?

no one claimed ppl were RECOGNIZING the clash sample, quite the opposite; its just a super catchy track

― Gifted Unlimited Display Names Universal (deej), Monday, May 10, 2010 10:25 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

haha dude christ. Daniel already typed both choruses out, it's not like the words "all i wanna do" are the only thing they share in common, it's practically the same chorus with a couple words/sounds swapped out.

"xxxo" is ok on first listen

why the fuck was this thread chosen for the m.i.a. revive anyway? it's pissing me off - there are a million m.i.a. threads, let mia have her space.

blame it on the forks

haha it was annoying me too

I had completely missed the rump shaker reference until some earlier ilm thread. Man, that song is nowhere near as ubiquitous as it was in 199x.

Although I bet more people glommed onto that ref than the Clash sample.

http://www.amazon.com/Xxxo/dp/B003K3YRY4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dmusic&qid=1273548665&sr=8-1

This is out there in high quality.

'rump shaker' was never ubiq where mia grew up

why is it a big deal that mia uses samples btw? especially when 'rump shaker' is based on two massive effing well-known hooks already for god's sake

I bet Joe Strummer would have been totally cool with MIA using Clash samples, considering how the Clash basically sampled the original New York punk rock of the Ramones to come up with their style.

er no

i mean yeah he would have been cool with her sampling him but otherwise nuh-uh

He would have been all like "Go ahead, it's yours, innit? After all, we nicked our sound from those long-haired yanks..."

"we nicked our sound from those long-haired yanks"

nah

its not a big deal that MIA samples, its just stupid that a bunch of ppl give her credit for something (still not really sure what - 'personality'??) when imo the only reason she had a hit was because of a one-track jack of an obscure song. the idea that her referencing rump shaker so obscurely that half the ppl didnt realize it was rump shaker in this thread suggests that nah it wasnt that big a deal

ive made this point already tho not sure whats so complicated about it. its a catchy-ass beat because of the music it rips from the clash

you're conflating two different things here: people 'give her credit' for having two albums that are critical favorites. That her sole pop hit happens to have a prominent sampled hook doesn't make her much different from a LOT of rappers.

i don't get why people are always talking about run-dmc when their only top ten hit was all about fucking aerosmith

Every US poster who was actively listening to the radio in 1992-1993 who didn't immediately catch the "Rump Shaker" reference needs to pay more attention to, like, EVERYTHING.

Um, as it was pointed out, it was BARELY A REFERENCE. Glancing, at best.

^^ really hope that's just a deej parody

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l3A3ALppN8

you're right, barely a reference

indeed. in fact, i've scrubbed the wrecks n effect line from my memory entirely.

now all i hear is the clash. clash, clash, clash.

Realllllly don't get the "abrasive" line on "xxxo." I'm not sure it's hit material, just hooks-wise or whatever (I also don't think she really gives a shit) but sonically it's not more jarring or irritating than half the stuff on the radio right now.

also the Rump Shaker thing is way more than "all I wanna do is," it's "all I wanna do is VERB VERB VERB and a VERB VERB! blah VERB your VERB!"