MIA

It Iz What It Iz seems like the best song on the album to me: A gauzy, slow banger-type. Of course it's a Blaqstarr joint.

It may seem that way, but what it actually is is a vacant, boring, meandering mess with no propulsion, drive or entry point to invite the listener into its world.

i like the hard jams most, but i really don't mind the spacey pop -- "space" in particular, which i've liked ever since she released the video some months back. i like how the contrast throws the whole album off-kilter. i think i pretty much agree with alfred's ranking of the three albums, tho piracy funds terrorism would rate between kala and maya.

A best-of album skimming the best tracks off of all three albums would be like wo

also no one would be able to agree what tracks to put on it

It may seem that way, but what it actually is is a vacant, boring, meandering mess with no propulsion, drive or entry point to invite the listener into its world.

Dan, this isn't the Inception thread.

lol

(Actually "Space" is pretty good; I just get so amped up by the uptempo tracks that I never want to hear it.)

after listening for a couple weeks, i love the record straight through and would only be tempted to cut "tell me why", which makes the album's final stretch a bit of a chore. swap it out for "illygirl" and "believer". though i like the gentler stuff in the middle, hi dere's right that the strongest tracks are the hardest/noisiest: "xxxo" through "lovealot" to kick the album off, "born free" + "meds & feds" at the other end. initially HATED "lovealot", dunno why...

Is "XXXO" really not pop friendly? I'm kind of out of the loop chart-wise but it sounds like it's a pretty clear single to me.

"XXXO" sounds like a lost Debbie Deb or Lisa Lisa track.

"XXXO" is super pop-friendly IMO

"xxxo" is very catchy and perhaps even pop-friendly. when i first heard it, i thought it sounded too sluggish and harsh to really work as a proper pop single, but now that i'm used to it, i can't see what bothered me about it in the first place. i'd still be really surprised if it made any kind of dent in the american pop charts.

well yeah no one is going to play it, or if they do it will happen in like 2012 when none of us actually care

i've since deleted the version of "xxxo" i downloaded a month or two back. seem to recall the crunchy, shattery, metallic noise elements being a little more prominent in the mix. album version is fairly smooth, really. maybe it was just the shitty MP3 quality that made it sound so abrasive...

well, there were two versions of it floating around; one was way more abrasive/harsh and the other was what ended up on the album

I'm really starting to notice the quality of MP3 vs albums lately. I thought the LCD Soundsystem was trash until I bought a physical copy.

all the leaks for that sounded particularly shitty

xx-post: that's probably it. i'm still hearing the song as filtered through my initial impressions of the earlier, noisier mix. released version isn't as abrasive, but it is sharp, spare, tough-sounding (through the verses, anyway). seems more in keeping w tracks like teqkilla than with the diplo stuff.

"illygirl" is not bad!

The final arrival in the top 10 this comes from M.I.A.'s "Maya," starting at No. 9 with 28,000. It easily surpasses the No. 18 debut and peak of her last set, 2007's "Kala," though it started with a shade more: 29,000

Congratulations M.I.A.! People are buying fewer albums than ever!

i like "it takes a muscle" but then i looked up the original version by spectral display and liked it better.

Congratulations M.I.A.! People are buying fewer albums than ever!

yeah unbelievable that 28,000 gets you in the Top 10. industry is so dead.

Only just managed to bring myself to listen to this, and my expectations were so low that I actually find myself pleasantly surprised that it has one good song (It Takes A Muscle).

I think I've said before (in response to Hit That) that MIA just doesn't work unless there's momentum or melody behind her, her delivery isn't good enough to work over slower or sparer beats, and as soon as you start incorporating dubstep elements into anything it's the equivalent of tying lead weights to it.

She just picked the wrong producers really, there are so many people out there at the moment who would have been perfect for her - an MIA album featuring Toddla T/Crazy Cousinz/Ill Blu/Kingdom/Sticky/all of the above could have been amazing.

kind of boggling that anyone would pick "It Takes A Muscle" as the one good song

like, why do you think it's good and not a meandering, plodding mess of nonsense?

It has a tune, that helps.

It's not great by any means but on an album with virtually no decent hooks whatsoever it stood out.

since when has MIA been about tunes??????

Like, where is the tune in "Bucky Done Gun" or "Galang" or "XR2" or "10 Dollar" or "$20"? How is the tune on "It Takes A Muscle" any different from or better than "Tell Me Why" or "Space" or "XXXO"? What is a "decent hook" and why don't you think the ones in "Teqkilla", "Born Free", "Lovalot", "Illygirl", "Internet Connection", or "Steppin Up" qualify?

I could understand hating the entire album but picking out the least energetic and least interesting song as the best one and then dismissing the rest of the album for pretty much doing exactly what M.I.A. did on her previous two albums, all over tracks regularly singled out as being among her best (note: not every track I listed is regularly singled out as being among her best) and basically I think you're being lazy.

I mean it's kind of like hearing "Pass That Dutch" and going "ugh I used to love Missy Elliott so much on 'Work It' but now all she does is brag about her sexual prowess"

Dan you're overstating the similarities between what MIA does here and what she did on the last two albums. MIA's never been about tunes really but she's always been about HOOKS - Bucky Done Gun, Galang, 10 Dollar, Fire Fire, Paper Planes, Banboo Banga, Boyz... all of these have terrific hooks and they almost all work because they have this fantastic sense of darting forward motion.

The new songs, especially the Roska produced ones, feel draggy and leaden, and it doesn't help that they're almost all much slower than all the tracks you listed from the previous albums. They mostly suffer from the same things I hate about this strand of dubstep. There are producers and vocalists who do incredible things with menacing bass rumbling and grinding metallic beats and Rusko and MIA aren't really among them.

I think the sound effects here have the hooks you're looking for.

Just for the record, "Teqkilla", "Born Free", and "Lovalot" are all faster than the songs you listed and "Paper Planes" is the slowest song she's ever done, so you are arguing from a provably false premise.

maybe the main thing is that on the first two records the vocals & the beats were much better friends...the beats sounded like they were made for her and she sounded great on them. on this record they feel weirdly disconnected imo.

pretty sure galang is faster than teqkilla (you have to factor in that dancehall upbeat/double-time feel)

ha okay yes it is

it's not faster than "Lovealot"

I'm not really arguing about speed, I'm arguing about momentum and Teqkilla may be fast but throws too much stuff in the way of the beat to ever feel like it's settling into a good groove. Paper Planes is slower but it rolls along so well. I don't much like Born Free at all as a song but at least it feels like it's going somewhere.

I mean in the interests of full disclosure 99% of dubstep really fucking bores me so I'm not really ever going to like an album like this with a big dubstep footprint all over it.

I actually quite like Lovalot after listening to it again, mostly due to the vocals. Part of my problem with this album is that the beats she's picked feel like they exacerbate her limitations as a singer and MC, whereas the last two albums render those limitations irrelevant.

I mean I'm pretty sure she wasn't going for momentum and bounce and groove on most of these songs but that doesn't stop me thinking it was a bad aesthetic choice to have made.

"Lovalot" is rather quickly becoming the standout track on the album for me.

Many of the others had to sink in a bit before I got them (except "Teqkilla") and some I still just flat-out dislike (most notably "It Takes A Muscle" which is why I was baffled that THAT was the one track that you said was any good)

"It Takes a Muscle" is the track I've come around to last.

It's probably just that I found a lot of what came before it so unpleasant that a bit of watery reggae felt kind of refreshing.

Part of my problem with this album is that the beats she's picked feel like they exacerbate her limitations as a singer and MC, whereas the last two albums render those limitations irrelevant.

^^^yeah, this is it for me. she's great within a very small range, and it's got to be hard to keep writing tunes/finding beats to exploit that after a few albums.

I don't mean to be pedantic, but the tracks on which she's sung in a conventional sense are very few.

Fuck the haters. Every time I listen to this I love the texture of it more and more and more.

Hazy and noisy and chaotic and overly busy and just...I read and understand people's reasons for disliking the LP (as in understand the words that they are saying) but I can't imagine myself into a position where my ears hear whatever it is that they do.

Teqkilla may be fast but throws too much stuff in the way of the beat to ever feel like it's settling into a good groove

ok, this gives me an excuse to quote myself (from here):

Nothing really flows on Maya—it rushes forward, loops back, races off in a different direction, and sometimes just flails around drunkenly.

(but i mean it in a good way.)

Alex, otm. When did people stop liking noisy, abbrasive, anti-everything music that you can actually mosh or dance to? Seriously, the way some people are criticizing this album, you'd think M.I.A.'s previous albums were adult-contemporary. Kala and Arular are NOT quiet storm, folks.

I pick most of my favorite music based on whether or not I can mosh to it.

that's hot.