MIA

IMO the past decade has seen a huge marginalisation of political artists (or rather continued it from the mid-90s), which is exactly why MIA stands out.

was meaning to mention this earlier. the same idea got an airing recently in some pitchfork thread or another (don't wanna dig for it, but it concerned connor oberst joining the arizona boycott). anyway, i agree entirely. we seem recently to have developed this collective, knee-jerk distaste for political discourse in pop music.* i find this dispiriting, and for that reason have been happy to see maya's ascendance as a "political artist".

* and maybe that's why the backlash has been so particularly venomous.

The thing that really sums it up for me is the bit in the Simpsons Movie where Green Day have been playing for three hours and Billie Joe asks for a minute to say something about the environment and everyone boos and shouts, "Preaching!" That, to me, is the story of political pop in the 00s.

That's b/c people who care enough about music to think/write about it have made their peace with the status quo.

this is more "less artists are being political", not "political artists are being marginalised" - it seems sometimes that people really want artists to be more politicised than they are.

again, US/UK, but as much as i hear lefty people my age and younger say they want musicians to express their politics, reactions tend to be harsh when they do. and not "i disagree with you" harsh, but "shut up you corny fuck!" harsh. like all the lolling at bono's political work. i think U2 and bono are awful, but still have huge respect for what he's done with his celebrity, regardless of what his motivations might have been. but i don't see a lot of respect for that kind of heart-on-sleeve actism in ilxor-type fan/critic circles.

admit though that this overinvolved mini culture is a kind of bubble, and it perhaps blinds me to the world outside it...

ha when people in an erykah badu audience shout "preach!" it's a sign of approval and will be accompanied by rapturous cheers, not boos

badu might be a good example actually - i also think new amerykah pt 1 is a landmark album-of-my-lifetime but it got waaaaay more attention because it was political than eg mama's gun or new amerykah pt 2

The Bono hate is widespread - he's the lightning rod for a lot of this stuff and I don't think he's done anything to justify this level of contempt. It's much easier to be the Red Hot Chili Peppers (who also moved their business to the Netherlands for tax reasons) and not give a shit about anything but money than it is to do anything political at all. I'm not saying there aren't many sound criticisms to make of Bono but I think the current antipathy is indicative of something else.

ha when people in an erykah badu audience shout "preach!" it's a sign of approval and will be accompanied by rapturous cheers, not boos

badu might be a good example actually - i also think new amerykah pt 1 is a landmark album-of-my-lifetime but it got waaaaay more attention because it was political than eg mama's gun or new amerykah pt 2

this is a good angle. when talking about the response to politics in music, my frame of reference is largely defined by the american indie/rock/critical community. and it's way too easy to universalize the values of your niche, especially when you rarely venture outside it. reaction to musical politicking might be very different in other circles, but i'd know less about that.

speaking of badu, the recession and the last american election cycle seemed to encourage a wave of political rap and R&B, but i'm not sure yet where that's gonna lead.

"a wave of political rap and R&B"

most of which was sadly shit

90% of verbalized thoughts about politics in any form are sadly shit

I've said it before that if you submitted the wildly contradictory and more problematic lyrics of a less explicitly political artist like, say, Dizzee Rascal to this level of scrutiny it would collapse much faster than MIA's.

"it seems sometimes that people really want artists to be more politicised than they are."

they dont really. in theory, they do, but when they actually get it, it just gets lols (as others have already said). partly cos a lot of the time its not really that good (eg - most of the terrible hip hop songs about obama) or apes long gone political-song tropes, but also cos people are too fucking cynical, think theyre too above it all and too clever for anything that 'believes in something'. the best way to do it now is to either do it from a pretty distant angle, be pretty opaque about it, to the point where its hard to tell if its actually that political or not, or do what mia does/did, which is hide it in lots of seemingly nonsensical lyrics, without being too brazen about it. ie dont show you believe in something TOO much.

most of which was sadly shit

easy to say, but jeezy and badu did well in the recent 05-09 survey

I for one refuse to listen to any new political pop music unless it contains a credible plan for tackling the budget deficit.

...people are too fucking cynical, think theyre too above it all and too clever for anything that 'believes in something'. the best way to do it now is to either do it from a pretty distant angle, be pretty opaque about it, to the point where its hard to tell if its actually that political or not, or do what mia does/did, which is hide it in lots of seemingly nonsensical lyrics, without being too brazen about it. ie dont show you believe in something TOO much.

^ this. and i'm fucking sick of it. so goddam cynical, timid and conservative.

xpost. Which is why it's best when the music itself makes the point - MIA's music is "political" even if you can't understand the lyrics (see also: Public Enemy, Ghost Town, Sandinista!). These days, a political rap over a standard beat is going to struggle.

Talking of records which have avoided punishing scrutiny, Bombs Over Baghdad (Pitchfork's song of the decade no less) is far crasser in its use of political metaphor than anything MIA has done, but I don't remember anyone giving Outkast shit for it. I love that song - I just wonder why people don't question the validity and tact of using aerial bombardment as a metaphor for pulling your "thang".

you can't match a love like mine - it's like tryna rob me with a bb gun
but my love gets it poppin like the taliban
*gunshots*

(the-dream, "sex intelligent")

one of my favourites was NERD saying that lapdance was about politicians. which i thought was pretty wtf/stfu at the time but now im a bit more sympathetic. just cos i like the concept. even though its bullshit. the dream is just wilfully moronic. this thread should be allowed to exist without discussing terius.

i remember when jennifer capriati requested "b.o.b." as her entrance music for a match in miami, because she wanted to "show support for the troops" loooool. in response a tennis columnist sniffed that "capriati's unregenerate vulgarity is the worst-kept secret in the sport"

simply mentioning things that happen to have political significance != making political music. i mean, clipse roll deep like the hutus, but it's ridiculous to say they're making any kind of political point.

rappers love quoting/referencing political stuff, esp when its gruesome/violent (eg - bob, clipse's hutu line, various rappers talking about the taliban), they divorce it from the politics really.

simply mentioning things that happen to have political significance != making political music. i mean, clipse roll deep like the hutus, but it's ridiculous to say they're making any kind of political point.

― good news if you wear cargo shorts (contenderizer), Thursday, July 15, 2010 6:29 AM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

also, water: wet

it's getting old, deej

Aren't Green Day kind of the counter example here? I thought American Idiot was their big 00s political album and people lapped that shit up!

http://www.cokemachineglow.com/record_review/5514/mia-maya-2010

This is a spectacularly vindictive review. It reads like the guy personally detests her.

What about System of a Down? Weren't they supposed to be a political band?

Had you heard of the Armenian Genocide of 1915 before System of a Down told you?

Yeah, Green Day and SOAD are both good examples, though I don't think of them as getting a free pass in these circles. And yeah, I knew nothing about the Armenian genocide before I interviewed SOAD.

This is a spectacularly vindictive review. It reads like the guy personally detests her.

true, but it's also a interesting and insightful piece of criticism. though i strongly disagree with the writer's overall assessment, i enjoyed reading what he had to say. it even helped me understand the album a bit better. which doesn't excuse the raging, misplaced contempt, but everybody's got their axe to grind...

Well it's certainly not dull, but it didn't give me any insight at all, except into the psyche of an angry, angry man.

ok no apologies for linking to HRO for like the third time on this thread, coz this contains the sentence "Wish I had a metaphorical ‘full table.’"

http://altreport.hipsterrunoff.com/2010/07/diplo-goes-on-record-calls-m-i-a-a-lazy-rich-careless-human-being.html

Excellent work shoehorning Dostoevsky and Borges in there, angry young man.

it's allllll about rich four four's review. everything has been worth it for the sake of this coming into existence http://fourfour.typepad.com/fourfour/2010/07/a-collage-for-a-collage.html

i wonder if cokemachine guy realises that the one song he likes but calls 'undeniably trite' wasn't written by her. least he could do is read the Wiki before he goes off on one.

We are all hopelessly linked, infamous truffle fries.

^^^^ truth

On records past M.I.A. was still alluding broadly to meaning—tellingly political, one of the easiest ways to seem relatable without actually saying anything, like any successfully galvanizing speech, though muddled and often contradictory—but I, and most listeners I’d venture, were more than willing to fill in the gaps of her argument with the energy of the dancefloor.

woah nelly. this is dude's second sentence. now, i loves me a good parenthetical dashy thing -- use it all the time -- but what in fuck is going on here? it's too long for a dashy bit and idk what dude even means. or what meaning he is alluding to.

Well it's certainly not dull, but it didn't give me any insight at all, except into the psyche of an angry, angry man.

well, sure, he's an angry dick. no argument. but i think he's also kinda OTM about the glazed, disconnected, self-obsessed nature of the album, and how alienating that probably makes it for a lot of listeners. MIA's always been a sloganeer, and her slogan has always been "MIA", but on the new album, most of the joy drops out, leaving this weird, paranoid, inward-looking shell. the album cover and lead off "message" paint an accurate portrait of what MAYA has in store. and that's no big insight, but angryman's review helped bring all that into focus for me - in this moment, at least.

re the 2nd sentence: yeah, lol. in reading that, i yadda'd out the gibberish parenthetical.

At the risk of sounding like another kind of dick, that's pretty much exactly the gist of my Q review (not online so nobody's read it): "Obsessed with enemies, real and imagined, M.I.A. has begun to encase herself in armour which threatens to squeeze out her previous capacity for warmth and celebration." It's a point that can be made without sounding like a psychopath.

I see that angry cokemachineglow guy's review of !!! includes imagined dialogue, which is one dreadful reviewing gimmick I'm glad Pitchfork grew out of.

rich four four's is amazing. That's the ultimate consensus review.

holy shit that four four thing!

"I feel as if I’m breaking up with my girlfriend of three years."

man, I would be so much more into that FourFour piece if it wasn't hyperlinked (although I know it needs to be); reading all of that formatted that way gives me a headache

(also lol, sorry Jess)

http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd120/hipsterrunoff/photographs/hro/644005c6.jpg

i do not enjoy reading hipster runoff. it is like kim jong il.

lol

Right now my main complaint about this album is that it chickens out halfway through and gets really slushy and nonabrasive without having anything really interesting or compelling to back up easing off the intensity of the music. Maybe no one else wants an entire album of "Teqkilla" but I really, really do.

kim jong il is the greatest writer in the world

man, I would be so much more into that FourFour piece if it wasn't hyperlinked (although I know it needs to be); reading all of that formatted that way gives me a headache

― HI DERE, Thursday, 15 July 2010 13:43 (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

haha running my cursor over it randomly was my favourite thing about it!

Ha! I'm the exact opposite. Can't stand Teqkilla and only grow to love the album from Story to Be Told onwards. I like the vulnerability. Obviously I was never a big enough Skinny Puppy fan.

I'm actually trying to think of a better analogue than Skinny Puppy because the music on this is a good bit brighter than the sound palette they worked with; there's definite harshness going on but none of the menace.

lol I am making it sound like Nitzer Ebb, aren't I?

"Truffle I'm Here"