M.I.A. - KALA

I'll see if I can find it again. There is an instrumental of "Paper Planes" around, so maybe someone just used that to do a version -- still, it would be kind of a weird choice for a west-African vocal group to sing over, and it appears that the instrumental Diplo put out there still has M.I.A.'s chorus on it, which this one didn't (though obviously they could just loop the verses) ... I should just track this thing down again.

― nabisco, Thursday, November 29, 2007 5:34 PM (11 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

real late to the party here but did you mean this joint

nice

thank you, ethan :-)

http://www.blackbookmag.com/article/danny-boyle-on-slumdog-millionaire-and-the-smell-of-india/5013

You asked M.I.A. to do a song for the film?
We asked her if we could use “Paper Planes”, and she watched the movie and she was very generous, gave me very smart notes. I said we were going to do the music with A.R. Rahman, and when she was growing up, he was one of her heroes, so she sang on one of his tracks.

huh! tried to see that Sat. night but it was sold out (it's only on one or two screens in nyc so far)

that Esau Mwamwaya youtube is sweet

Okay I think "The Turn" is maybe an order of magnitude better than everything else on this album.

btw I was amazingly rong about this

13 Paper Planes (Allstars mix) - MIA
15 Shells - MIA
17 Far Far - MIA
18 Big Branch - MIA
19 What I Got - MIA
20 Sound of Kuduro - Bukara Som Simesta & MIA

These are the only tracks that made it onto my bonus track copy btw. I've listened to them all once and I like them all but might be completely, insufferably obsessed with "Big Branch" soon.

ethan your critique would have more weight if you'd actually give the stuff a listen - "fake dancehall" is beneath you

― J0hn D., Wednesday, September 5, 2007 10:11 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

cant believe i caught shit for this - im listening to the lady saw joint on this old 2003 dancehall comp & my co-worker just asked me "is this MIA"?

was hoping this was getting bumped as part of worldwide hipster day 2008

"cant believe i caught shit for this - im listening to the lady saw joint on this old 2003 dancehall comp & my co-worker just asked me "is this MIA"?"

This proves it then. It's just fake dancehall.

where did i say it's "JUST" fake dancehall

there's other fake stuff on there too

Fake stuff is good.

good fake stuff is good

was about to make that clarification

Good stuff is good.

we all agree!

whistle whistle blow blow
here we here we go go

This album is the worst.

This isn't the La Roux thread, dude.

Sorry to bring up p2k, but I was disappointed to see this only in the early 20s.

"mia is shit" troll

I was disappointed to see this only in the early 20s.

it's my own personal designated Album of the '00s. but i don't expect that to be a consensus view.

I will never for one second of my life understand people who prefer Kala.

Why?

prefer it to arular,you mean? better songs, more interesting production. (i like arular a lot too, don't get me wrong.)

The songs that fall down on Kala don't disrupt the flow of the album nearly as much as the songs that fall down on Arular, plus Kala doesn't have anything on it as aggressively annoying as "10 Dollar". Also, the more I played Kala, the more I liked the songs I found initially annoying, whereas with Arular I ended up disliking songs I initially liked ("Bucky Done Gun" being the big culprit there).

(from my perspective, namely wishing more of Arular was like "Amazon" and "URAQT", Kala was a massive step in the direction I wanted her to go)

the more I played Kala, the more I liked the songs I found initially annoying

this was especially true for me of "20 dollar" and "hussel."

but i still shut off the timberland track at least half the time.

timbAland, obv....

Arular doesn't HAVE any songs that fall down, top 5 album of the decade imo. About a third of Kala is sludgy and tedious and barely listenable. And Arular had better songs and production, some stuff on Kala seems undersketched and the whole album sounds dry and brittle where Arular sounded warm and colorful.

the whole album sounds dry and brittle where Arular sounded warm and colorful.

it's funny, that's almost the opposite of how i'd describe them. warm and colorful is exactly how i hear kala.

but i don' wanna fight, i love them both.

can't stand Arular - this album is miles better

Amazon, on Arular, is unf--kwithable.

But I also love the last song on KALA (sans the horrible Timbaland vocal bit), so my opinion can't be trusted.

i only ever listen to maybe half (or less) of the songs on kala, but they're better than most or all of the good stuff on arular

piracy is still my favorite, i think?

So if we're really going down this route, here are the songs I fuck with on Arular:

Pull Up the People
Fire Fire
Amazon
Sunshowers
Galang
Hombre
URAQT
MIA

Here are the songs I fuck with on Kala:

Bamboo Banger
Bird Flu
Boys
Hussel
$20
World Town
XR2
Paper Planes
Come Around
Shells
Far Far
Big Branch
Sound of Kuduro

No fair using the bonus tracks!

I think I need to listen to these albums side by side to decide. My instinct sez that Arular is slightly better, but I also agree that the Piracy mixtape is the best thing her name is attached to.

i only ever listen to maybe half (or less) of the songs on kala, but they're better than most or all of the good stuff on arular

yeah, this sums my position up basically. kala keepers = "bamboo banga", "hussel", "bird flu", "paper planes" - all some of the absolute best things m.i.a.'s done. to a lesser extent, "jimmy" and "xr2" are pretty good too, but there's nothing else on the album i really care about. whereas there's little on arular i dislike; maybe a caveat for preferring the dj marlboro remix of "bucky done gun" and the piracy funds terrorism version of "sunshowers".

the piracy funds terrorism version of "sunshowers".

cosign

i dunno which i prefer, there's a few tracks from both albums i jam on the reg and i ignore the others on each. probably swing towards Kala tho.

dunno why 'Come Around' gets hate either ("MIA doesn't live in a teepee" is a lame reason)

also kala sounds so much better and bigger, as opposed to arular's cheapo aesthetic

The Arular CD doesn't sound cheapy at all though. Just the original leaked mp3s.

i have a real copy and all the production sounds kinda thin and digital to me. i think it's intentional and i like it, but i like the samples and percussion assaults on kala more.

it's definitely possible that my enthusiasm for arular was tempered by knowing and loving a lot of those songs in their piracy form first.

as for "come around," it's ok, but it's a sort of 2nd- or 3rd-rate timbo beat, and i think doesn't measure up to a lot of the rest of the album. it feels predictable in a way that most of kala doesn't.

"i have a real copy and all the production sounds kinda thin and digital to me."

That's funny cuz I was shocked when I first heard the CD how much thicker, lusher and louder it sounded to me than the mp3s.

wait, it's all coming back to me and i think those might still be the original mp3s on my ipod, and i never bought a copy. oops.

what a difference a good mastering job makes, i'm guessing.

i don't think arular is thin, i just think it's not quite as sonically varied.