MIA

^^^^^ post would have had some level of content if it was merely "."

not going to go that far; there are plenty of examples in mainstream pop of people going off on culturally political tangents from the Dixie Chicks' anti-Bush stances to Toby Keith's angry Democrat steez to Miley Cyrus being all "GOD LOVES GAY MARRIAGE" to Beyonce's girl power anthems etc etc etc

that's fair. maybe i give to little credit to the depth & breadth of the political conversation going on in contemporary pop. i'd never argue that political speech is entirely absent. but it does tend to come as a detail on the side of most pop artists' identities. and dixie chicks are a good example of the risks involved in courting real controversy.

with the above in mind, the degree of maya's alignment of her own identity with a potentially controversial view of global politics still seems unusual to me. bono has done something somewhat similar, of course, but in a way that seems calculated to avoid (rather than court) controversy in the West.

MIA music is so shitty

but still: lool

― ☼ (Lamp), Thursday, August 5, 2010 5:48 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

blazing post

seriously I am going to start banning you content-free dickfaces from this thread

if you're just posting so you can make fun of other posters or shut down conversation, gtfo and feel lucky I don't just temp ban you from the board since this is basically what you do on 80% of the threads I see you on

loool "therefore"?

yeah, "therefore". i'd say that pop personas are successful in large part only to the extent that they're somehow relatable. therefore, they are in some sense "meant to be" relatable. maya's creating a pop identity (a self that invites identification of some sort) that encourages identification with often despised, excluded, exoticized selves. i see that as political in and of itself.

yea i mean i ain't one of those confrontational ILX headhunters but Lamp's contributions to debate lately have seemed to be lil more than the equivalent of 'lol u stupid'

enh read better threads

i'd say that pop personas are successful in large part only to the extent that they're somehow relatable

i feel like the opposite is the case - the more distancing and opaque a 'pop persona' is the more successful it becomes? lady gaga for e.g. isnt partic 'relatable'? i dont think theres the same need for closeness/identification w/ pop stars there is for like movie stars (lol 'king' of pop) bcuz the relationship btw author and audience is so different.

also i dont see how hipster art student is 'opposed to the western cultural self' - feel like her 'politics' are so transparently the politics of stlye/self - this is totally western... ugh nvm ill take the thread ban.

maya's creating a pop identity (a self that invites identification of some sort) that encourages identification with often despised, excluded, exoticized selves. i see that as political in and of itself.

― a CRASBO is a "criminally related" ASBO (contenderizer), Thursday, August 5, 2010 5:57 PM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark

you set a pretty low bar. i think there is quite a bit of exoticization of mia herself w/ all this 'maybe she doesn't know what she's saying' ish. but i dunno, all of what you say is pretty much 'up to you really'. 'pop personas are successful in large part only to the extent that they're somehow relatable.' k, each to their own.

dunno what to make of dan's intervention there. maybe if i'd studied cultural studies i could bring whatever it is conderizer brings to the mia table.

also i dont see how hipster art student is 'opposed to the western cultural self' - feel like her 'politics' are so transparently the politics of stlye/self - this is totally western... ugh nvm ill take the thread ban.

― ☼ (Lamp), Thursday, August 5, 2010 12:27 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad280/sapphirah444/christ-on-the-cross.jpg

The intent of my "intervention" was to make you guys stop being lazy and write, for example, the last posts you and Lamp (aside from the martyrdom nonsense) made.

I don't think contenderizer is correct in what he's saying, mostly because the stuff he's privileging isn't anything I particularly care about, plus I think there's almost willful ignoring of similar confused political garbling in a myriad of other musicians' work (hi dere Rihanna and Eminem). If the music doesn't grab you, the correctness of M.I.A. as a political pop star is irrelevant. If the music DOES grab you, the correctness of M.I.A. as a political pop star is irrelevant because oh hey, awesome music.

I do agree that there's a certain amount of thinness on this album that makes it hard to talk about specifics within some of the songs, which is another reason why the middle stretch is my least favorite.

i think there is quite a bit of exoticization of mia herself w/ all this 'maybe she doesn't know what she's saying' ish.

What exoticisation? That's a weird assumption on your part.Nobody's saying she's a noble savage, just that maybe she doesn't think through every lyric before recording it.

lady gaga for e.g. isnt partic 'relatable'? i dont think theres the same need for closeness/identification w/ pop stars there is for like movie stars...

also i dont see how hipster art student is 'opposed to the western cultural self'

gaga is something of an outlier, but the obvious points of identification are queered-ness (as broadly as that can be read) and safely radical artiness. self = tough, weird, smart, arty, draggy, sexy. plus (perhaps) some skin borrowed from already-relatable pop personas like madonna's.

and i don't think maya presents herself, within the context of her art, as a "hipster art student." more as third-worlder, immigrant, outsider, "terrorist", hustler.

to be honest, without consulting the lyric book, I'm unable to discern a lot of the lyrical content on her albums. this one's a little bit easier due to the presence of more vocal melodies, plus a book with all lyrics included, but I kinda decided a few years ago that while I appreciate it when a musician attempts to tackle politics, they're not the first source I'm going to go to for that...

um in the context of her art, M.I.A. absolutely is a hipster art student like 90% of the time

but i dunno, all of what you say is pretty much 'up to you really'. 'pop personas are successful in large part only to the extent that they're somehow relatable.' k, each to their own.

dunno what to make of dan's intervention there. maybe if i'd studied cultural studies i could bring whatever it is conderizer brings to the mia table.

― unchill english bro (history mayne), Thursday, August 5, 2010 10:30 AM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark

you can refute my argument about what pop personas offer to those who enjoy/consume them if you want. i mean, if an artist's persona were entirely alienating, i doubt that he/she would attract many fans. and most people seem to gravitate to artists with whom they share something or in whom they perceive something they want: a point of view, an attitude, an aspiration, a culture, whatever. and on the vast scale that pop stars operate, personal identification becomes crucial. it seems to me that eminem's popularity had at least as much to do with the fact that millions of kids/teens identified with him as with his skills, hooks, etc. and i don't think he's at all unique in that.

and i haven't studied shit. i'm a high-school dropout. currently in community college (night school).

M.I.A. absolutely is a hipster art student like 90% of the time

really? i can't think of a single song where she directly invites that association.

XR2?

i think you're saying that you read her as such, which isn't what i'm talking about

XR2, Hombre, URAQT, Bingo, Bamboo Banger, Bird Flu, The Turn, Come Around, Big Branch, Stepping Up, XXXO, Teqkilla, It Takes A Muscle, It Iz What It Iz, Meds and Feds, Tell Me Why...

in XR2 she's talking about a particular scene/point in time, and her presence in it isn't really described outside general signifiers like clothes & chemicals. and clubbing in 92 hardly belongs exclusively to hipsters & arts students (REM drop notwithstanding). and the song is hardly representative of her concerns overall.

dude, find me one thing in all that where "art student" or "hipster" are spelled out clearly. in bamboo banger, most of the points of association are non-western. in bird flu, she's even more direct about that. "i can go on my own making bombs with rubber bands ... they wanna check my papers see what i carry round" that doesn't = hipster art student life situation. none of the rest you mention establish that kind of character either. i'd say that songs like URAQT, XXXO, teqkilla, it takes a muscle & cet merely expand on the character she's otherwise created: immigrant, outsider, "terrorist", from trouble with trouble, and so on.

I just think that "hipster art student" is a really subjective category.

dude, find me one thing in all that where "art student" or "hipster" are spelled out clearly. in bamboo banger, most of the points of association are non-western. in bird flu, she's even more direct about that. "i can go on my own making bombs with rubber bands ... they wanna check my papers see what i carry round" that doesn't = hipster art student life situation. none of the rest you mention establish that kind of character either. i'd say that songs like URAQT, XXXO, teqkilla, it takes a muscle & cet merely expand on the character she's otherwise created: immigrant, outsider, "terrorist", from trouble with trouble, and so on.

have YOU not seen the keffiyeh craze

dressing up in outsider gear has been a scene trope since forever; look at greasers/punks/hipsters/metalheads/juggalos/ravers/insert yr favorite subcultural youth movement here

how "we" perceive Maya vs. how she wishes to be perceived FITE

yeah, the (thankfully fading) popularity of keffiyehs doesn't make all of maya's identity fragments automatically = hipster art student. she presents herself as the daughter of a tamil tiger, a ghetto kid and a terrorist. she associates herself with immigrants, those living in the shadow of the west, aspirational hustlers, suicide bombers, freedom fighters, etc. to the extent that she also reads as "hipster art student", it fits with the political aspect of her image making that i was talking about earlier. there's no line drawn between the HAS and all these other identities.

i'd argue that there are political dimensions to other forms of association with supposed outsiders, but that even in that context, what maya's doing is both unique and potent.

there's no line drawn between the HAS and all these other identities.

well yeah. and i don't think it's exactly damning to place her within the hipster-art-student lineage. see also: john lennon, lou reed, chuck d, etc.

nothing at all wrong with hipster art students. if it weren't for them, we wouldn't have a great deal of the music and other art i love best. but if the designation is used to rebut the idea that an artist has a more complex or politically significant identity (and this is exactly what lamp was doing), then it becomes a form of diminution. i mean, i haven't often seen john lennon, lou reed or chuck d praised as hipster art students. the designation is almost always pejorative, condescending, dismissive.

I somehow doubt those dudes were hipsters. Anyway, what sort of (and only sort of) sets MIA apart is that she went to art school to Go to Art School. A lot of those older dudes up through the punk years went to art school 'cause they couldn't get in anywhere else, right? Certainly true in the UK, wasn't it? That's how I always read the tradition of bands emerging from art school: the losers left to their own devices while the best and brightest went off to the fancy places.

you doubt that lou reed was a hipster?

Was he, pre-VU? I don't know his bio well enough, but wasn't he sort of an outcast with no friends subject to electric shock treatment, etc? What were Lou Reed: The College Years like?

dude had a hot girlfriend, played in bands, rolled with Delmore Schwartz and had poetry book named after some Ornette Coleman song, I think we can call him a hipster

certainly not a square

also had a late night jazz show called "excursions on a wobbly rail"

Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that art school is a fundamentally different experience today than it was 30+ years ago, isn't it? Now it's more of a means to an end than an end for people with no means. Like, way back when, people fell into advertising. Now they major in advertising.

People that went to art school back in the day became the template for what we consider hipsters today. And today hipsters are the people we commonly think of as the person who goes to art school.

pls 2 rename thread to Debating Hipster Criteria

I think that's implicit by calling the thread M.I.A. ?

I don't even know why we're creating this false dichotomy

lol. back to the album, I find that with Kala, that album was obvious to me at first, whereas with Maya, I'm having to use the same principles I did when listening to Mr. Bungle's Disco Volante (albeit to a lesser degree). sort of breaking the songs apart element by element, then deciding how I feel about them all being mushed up.

I think I like Kala better (well, pretty much know I do), but I think when the experiments work on Maya, they work real well. The problem with her gumbo approach is that it is likely to lead to stretches for each listener that aren't engaging, where all you can do is sit and wait for the interesting part to turn back up.

that said though I think the Pitchfork review was smug and told me very little about the album, so I'm glad I bought this before I read it.

I agree almost entirely with that assessment of the album.

Now it's more of a means to an end than an end for people with no means. Like, way back when, people fell into advertising. Now they major in advertising.

People that went to art school back in the day became the template for what we consider hipsters today. And today hipsters are the people we commonly think of as the person who goes to art school.

this seems like a false dichotomy used to attach a quality of legitimacy to some while denying it to others. To the extent that it's used as a blanket definition, i mean. art schools have been filled both with dedicated would-be artists and with the aimless children of privilege since forever. there's no reason but prejudice/taste to elevate lou & "those hipsters then" over maya & "these hipsters now."

or yeah, what da croup said

sorry for draggin thread back 2 the dark ages

Three weeks and several wrinkles later, I still rank her albums:

Kala >>>>> MAYA >>>>>>>>>> Arular

In the long history of pointless and excessive application of the term "hipster" on ILX his is up there. I don't see how it tells us anything about MIA.

The problem with her gumbo approach is that it is likely to lead to stretches for each listener that aren't engaging, where all you can do is sit and wait for the interesting part to turn back up.

yeah, this squares with the first couple days i spent listening to it. was initially put off by the jumble of aggressive noise, defensive paranoia and slack delivery at the album's front end, and had to slowly work my way towards appreciation, working out from the few tracks that immediately caught my ear.

x-post Sorry, I didn't intend to apply the false dichotomy so much as identify what's partly at play here vis a vis the MIA thread (fleetingly) intersecting with the hipster as pejorative thread. The hipster c. now is stereotypically the affluent layabout who goes to art school because he can, not because he has to - art school as luxury - which plays into perceptions of authenticity, intent, background, etc., re: MIA. I didn't mean to state anything as fact, though I did always think of art school in the UK in the '70s as a sort of default refuge, which I'm not sure it is today.

Hipster as pejorative seems to me to denote a wealthy background and/or bogus trend-hopping, neither of which applies here. If just going to art school makes you a hipster in some people's eyes than the word needs to be dismantled and never used again because it's meaningless.

Actually, an honest question here: what was MIA's upbringing like between when she moved back to London in 1986 or whenever and when her first album came out? What did her family do to make ends meet? How did she end up at art school? I don't think I remember seeing interviews that have covered that 15 or so year span.

when i use "hipster" as pejorative, it's somewhat similar to "fashion victim" - mostly w/r/t insufferable shoreditch types wearing :edgy: clothes so commonplace that they may as well be a uniform.

xps for a while in that 15-year span m.i.a. went to my primary school in wimbledon! it was your average london state school, i guess, full of all sorts.

She lived in a council flat and went to a comprehensive school - a writer I know was in her class. Her mum worked in Tesco. She stayed with her cousin in LA for a while after high school then came back and talked her way into art school. Looking at an old transcript from 2005, there's some interesting stuff on that period.

Re: school

"I used to get taken to special needs classes when I first got here and I only knew three words. Apple. Mango. Elephant. And Michael Jackson. So when I came here they used to take me out of normnal classes, put me in a van, take me to a special learning centre where you sat round with lots of other refugee kids, nobody really spoke to each other, we all spoke different languages, we all had to start from scratch. We did that for a year and a half. I failed English literature so the cultural relevance of certain words in English doesn’t exist for me. My English was really learnt from pop culture and stuff and I’m not precious about the way I use it. I have just as much empathy for the way Jamaicans or Indians used English as the way the English do."

Re: art college

"I didn’t have any grades and I didn’t have any work experience or anything like that but I was just like, You <have> to let me go here, I’m not taking no for an answer, I want to know how to do film just because there’s so much going on in my life that I need to talk about and there’s so many people I meet who are in fucked up situations and they don’t get represented and I want to learn how to do it. Then when I went it was fun. I liked fucking with them a little bit. Then I started getting serious and realised that a lot of people were debating their right to deal with serious issues, being white, middle class and privileged, which I thought was really dangerous. I assumed that people who have the privilege to get an education will go and blow up spots and show what’s going on in the world, right? But that’s not what was happening in these institutions, and it’s the same in America. It’s like you can’t have an opinion on something if you come from a privileged position so that leaves those people to rot away. I walked around saying, What are you doing? And all my friends were saying, We’re going to make films about UFOs. Nobody questions my right to talk about aliens."