MIA

ppl cut & paste quotes all the time, and most don't use ellipses or square brackets. you just have to do it in good faith.

I think the article basically appealed to people like Bill who've already made up their minds about what kind of person they think MIA is.

^ no, quite frankly, i never really gave a shit before, and will continue not to give a shit now. The article discusses visa problems, let's hope she continues to have them.

Wary about music/press-surrounding-the music fight but sometimes I feel her music wouldn't hit the way it does, if she wasn't this way as a person. Pop music is about the whole package.

The article discusses visa problems, let's hope she continues to have them.

You certainly sound like someone who doesn't give a shit either way. She may be full of shit but she has some of the lamest haters of any artist I can think of.

there are better ways of not giving a shit about something than getting in arguments on msg boards about that something

xpost hah supposedly visa problems inspired the enduring single Paper Planes. I agree, in a way.

mia has dumm opinions? god she should totally have her passport shredded

Bill has said what, 5 things on this thread? (Granted most of them were really stupid but that's as unsurprising as M.I.A. saying stupid stuff about terrorism.)

the ppl who buy her records -- myself included -- will care much more about the music than all this noise, tbh

true (and the article's biggest fans are obviously people who wanted MIA to suffer a hatchet job), but if she comes out with something that doesn't immediately grab the audience, people would be more apt to give it the benefit of the doubt if her rep is of forward-thinking, politically-minded dance floor genius than pretentious rich dipshit who stumbled into the good graces of Diplo and some record company dudes. and this is easily the highest profile interview she's given.

M.I.A. should come out with a solo voice + acoustic guitar album in 2015. Protest songs!

"^ no, quite frankly, i never really gave a shit before, and will continue not to give a shit now."

Right-o.

she loves madonna so dumbness definitely comes with that territory. (i love madonna and her dumbness.) don't know if this is more entertaining than hanky spanky sex book shocker or whatever. kinda less entertaining, really. how many people who dig MIA even know what the hell she is going on about in her songs? probably not many. tubthumping great for jello shot nite at the pub, etc.

xpost very true, if the new album is disappointing, the haters' voices will ring loudly.

forward-thinking, politically-minded dance floor genius than pretentious rich dipshit who stumbled into the good graces of Diplo and some record company dudes

If this article was successful at anything, it was in portraying her as both; this seems like an entirely false binary to me. Yes, it went to great pains to point out her shortcomings as a musician (which let's be honest, anyone who's ever seen a clip of her performing live was already aware that she is tone-deaf and arhythmical) but also pointed out her ability to edit, exploit synergy and mold the talents of others to her artistic vision. There's very little doubt in my mind that she is driving her collaborations after reading that article, particularly since it went so far out of its way to paint her as a controlling ogre.

She may be full of shit but she has some of the lamest haters of any artist I can think of.

http://www.alexross.com/slamdunk.jpg

i think you're giving it a more nuanced, generous reading than those not predisposed to like her, Dan. I'm sure Hirschberg painted Courtney Love as quite the driven lady, too.

how many people who dig MIA even know what the hell she is going on about in her songs?

yeah i don't jam that shit for the (usually rubbish) lyrics

Lyrics take em or leave em, but I will always maintain she is a great *vocalist*, as well.

xpost also if the new album is less "galang again" and more Flowers Of Romance, people aren't going to give her points for using collaborators well, but rip on the dipshit side of things.

Pseudo-multi-part-harmonies, rapping, speak singing, dancehall toasting, dream-pop cooing and more. She's probably improved even more on this new record.

"people aren't going to give her points for using collaborators well, but rip on the dipshit side of things"

I think "people" are probably just going to rip on the album, but whatever.

If you're writing a feature, your subject's rambling answers are always going to need curtailing or embellishing, but what's inexcusable for Hirschberg is that she trimmed the quotes to fit an agenda.

tubthumping great for jello shot nite at the pub

lol

Like suzy and s1ocki say, writers (myself included) play fast and loose with the order of quotes all the time. If someone says interesting things about subject x at three different points during an hour, then I'll compress them into one punchy composite quote. The point is not to change the meaning. Hirschberg's been caught out deliberately making her subject appear crass, self-important and pretentious (or at least moreso) by rearranging volatile quotes. It already annoyed me that she was so intent on giving MIA enough rope - another writer might have interrogated what she meant by "give war a chance" rather than leave it as a pat slogan - but this shows that she was actually manufacturing her own rope, which is just low. It's obvious that MIA will say some bona fide stupid shit, certainly enough to enliven a profile, without the writer having to warp and fabricate. I think MIA's response was pretty stylish - using raw audio rather than a rant to make her point - and (by also reproducing the fries conversation) witty. If I did this to an interviewee, then I wouldn't have anything to bitch about if she called me on it.

So, like, it's supposed to make MIA look better that she said those stupid things at different points and not just all at once? I'd be more inclined to support the artist's side of things in this instance if the artist in question a) wasn't already prone to making strident, boneheaded statements and b) didn't react to the profile with a Kanye-level degree of jackassery. Give her enough rope? MIA probably has rope on her rider.

Anyway, I read the article, heard MIA's side, and read the correction, and I still don't get the fuck point she was trying to make about going to the Grammys.

It's really not that understand to get her point when you read/hear the unedited quote. She's saying that part of her goal in being a successful musician was to publicise her political concerns, not just to get rich and go to the Grammys. Simple. If you already think she's an idiot then you're not going to be interested in working out what she's saying.

What is this "predisposed" shit? I had no idea who she was before I read the article. After I read it I thought she was an idiot. After reading the corrections to the story I still think she is an idiot.

"...you're not going to be interested in working out what she's saying."

Uh, there is no "nuance" to what she's saying, there's nothing worth "working out".

"She's saying that part of her goal in being a successful musician was to publicise her political concerns..."

If she's trying to gain sympathy for those concerns (and the rights of the minority population in Sri Lanka IS a worthy cause, in my opinion) she is doing a fucking lousy job.

"If she's trying to gain sympathy for those concerns (and the rights of the minority population in Sri Lanka IS a worthy cause, in my opinion) she is doing a fucking lousy job."

I don't think sympathy is what she's going for. Attention is and I think that as far as that goes she's succeeded. Obv at least one of the people that Hirschberg quoted thinks that this attention has been entirely negative, but given the way the rest of the piece appears to be a hatchet job it's sort of hard to take that already over the top quote very seriously.

Haunted Clocks OTM

^^^ yup. i like how everybody's gotten to enjoy their little moment of schadenfreude here.

I don't think she's an idiot. I like her first two records fine. I just don't see how going to the Grammys did anything but publicize MIA and the record industry (which is the only reason the Grammys exists, generally speaking). Did she have "Free Sri Lanka" scrawled on her belly or something? Being relatively famous, she would have gotten equal press by refusing to perform.

Regardless, I'd be more sympathetic to her strategy if her political beliefs were at all coherent. I understand some things make her angry, but ... so? Get in line.

don't know if anyone's posted this yet, but *siren.gif* breaking news *siren.gif* - http://pitchfork.com/news/39014-echo-chamber-colin-meloy-vs-mia/

are we allowed to say pitchfuck?

Colin Meloy, the Tucker Carlson of shitty indie bands

1,258,647 Followers

"Somehow with this chick, all the the liberal arts educated middle-class white people expected that she would be different. That she would be content and very happy to be poor and starving. That she would decline a fancy hotel suite and truffle-flavored fries. Are you people fucking crazy? You have the gall to be disappointed that she isn't poor and miserable enough for you to wax eloquent with a straight face on Sri Lankan politics with your buddies and use her as an example of how fucked up the whole situation is."

hmmm...

fwiw the first GIS result for truffle fry is MIA...but the second is Lenny Kravitz!

The Gawker comment Spinspin Sugah quoted from is good good stuff.

""Somehow with this chick, all the the liberal arts educated middle-class white people expected that she would be different. That she would be content and very happy to be poor and starving. That she would decline a fancy hotel suite and truffle-flavored fries. Are you people fucking crazy? You have the gall to be disappointed that she isn't poor and miserable enough for you to wax eloquent with a straight face on Sri Lankan politics with your buddies and use her as an example of how fucked up the whole situation is.""

MIA is just unused to posh varieties of french fries, being an outsider and everything, so she wanted to taste as many different new kinds as she could.

I have never had truffle fries and would totally try them if they were offered.

anyway

i never knew they even existed and now want to have some more than ever.

MIA should advertise them.

right, nothing about the truffle fries episode actually disproves hirschberg's point though, right? either in specifically retelling that anecdote or the more general one. specifically it's not that lefty-liberal political activists can't eat poncy foods, it's her lack of self-awareness in proclaiming herself to be an "outsider" while being someone that the new york times will buy truffle fries for. lady, you're establishment. this is ok! you wanted it! own it!

the general point about mia being a div who doesn't actually have a political message at all stands regardless.

She should shill truffle fries ... for charity!

"Are you tired of regular fries whose taste is ... missing in action? Try New MIA Truffle Fries! They've got a taste that's downright RADICAL!!!"

it's her lack of self-awareness in proclaiming herself to be an "outsider" while being someone that the new york times will buy truffle fries for

You are of course aware that this doesn't matter, like, at all, right?

Can someone please start a MAYA thread on which the words "truffle fries" are verboten? I tried yesterday but it didn't go through. Would be good to discuss the record rather than going around in circles.

Is the record out? Until then, it's holding period time, no?

Yeah it's too early for a thread I think, it'll just devolve right back into this again.

has it leaked? id discuss it if someone gave me a copy.

OK then, let's wait for the release/leak. I just wanted an early escape from Hirschberg hell.