Showing posts with label m.i.a.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label m.i.a.. Show all posts

Monday, September 19, 2016

video review: 'AIM' by m.i.a.


I can imagine this review will probably pull some controversy. Granted, it's M.I.A., wouldn't that be in the spirit of everything, but given the subscriber numbers... eh, it happens.

Next up... well, I should do Jason Aldean next, but that Usher album... we'll see. Stay tuned!

album review: 'AIM' by m.i.a

So let me put forward something with the benefit of some hindsight: could it be that M.I.A. was never that great of an artist?

Harsh charge to make, especially coming from someone who has never been all that fond of M.I.A., but let me make my case. Even when she burst onto the scene in the mid-2000s with her eclectic blend of choppy Afrobeat, hip hop, and raw provocation, I wasn't much of a fan, but I got the punk appeal. Jagged, explosive, not especially nuanced in her politics but loaded with enough potent sloganeering that she was hard to ignore, both Arular and KALA weren't really my thing but I could appreciate that she had her audience. Then MAYA happened... And here's the thing, I've heard a lot of people say that if it were released nowadays where noise rap is more prevalent, it'd get a better reception... but having gotten onboard with that genre in recent years and revisited that record, it really is as messy, shallow, and migraine-inducing as you'd remember - just because you're the first to the sound doesn't mean you did it best. She followed it in 2013 with Matangi, which I actually reviewed in full, and upon retrospect, I may have actually been too kind to it. I didn't like MAYA, but it at least felt like it was trying - when Matangi wasn't irritating the piss out of me with its sloppy misunderstandings of technology and politics and some painfully trite writing, it was just tedious, not helped by a laconic delivery which did nothing for any populism or melody the record half-heartedly tried to create.

But going into this reportedly final record, where even self-professed M.I.A fans were a little reticent, I started to wonder what it was M.I.A will have left behind. Of her five records, I'd only say two were close to good, and while I appreciate the embrace of rougher, noisier African-inspired textures in hip hop, M.I.A wasn't the only one to introduce those sounds. And fifty percent is not a winning or even passing record, so is AIM the album to tilt the scales in her favour?

Sunday, November 17, 2013

video review: 'matangi' by m.i.a.


You wanted it, you got it.

Next up is probably The Flower Kings, then I want to cover Gavin Degraw before Kellie Pickler, Danielle Bradbury, and (sigh) One Direction. Stay tuned!

album review: 'matangi' by m.i.a.

A couple of months ago, I did a retrospective review of Shaking The Habitual by The Knife, a critically acclaimed album that I didn't quite like as much as all of the critics did. And there's a reason for that: that album, despite some very solid ambient pieces I found quite stirring, the lyrics and delivery had the subtlety of a brick through a window. But more importantly, The Knife were trying to be very political on that album, and they were using their anti-commercialism in instrumentation to emphasize how difficult it would be for the average listener to accept the paradigm changes - but at the same time, it proved to be a fatal flaw, because by doing so, they killed any populist appeal they might be able to drum up. In the heavy-handed message-mongering of the album, The Knife utilized their instrumentation to hammer home their point... a point that ultimately turned out to be bog-standard left-wing criticisms of family values, environmentalism, and offered nothing new to the cultural discourse. And by killing any broader appeal, they only embodied the worst straits of snobbish artists with a message and proved more than a little insufferable for me, even though I agreed with their message.

See, here's the thing about political music: while politics offer a whole load of fascinating and captivating topics, it's hard to make political music well. It's a balancing act between the intellectual nuance that needs to be brought to be taken seriously and the populist appeal to speak to a broader audience. And believe me, it's hard to maintain that balance and it's why I maintain one of the best political bands was the anarcho-punk collective Chumbawamba (most commonly known for their one hit 'Tubthumping'), mostly because they balanced hard-edged and smartly articulated political messages with simple melodies, a lot of wit, great hooks, and a fundamental spirit of 'we're all in this together'. Even if you disagreed with the politics - which at points I did - I don't think you can argue that the delivery of their message was ingenious.

And yet, I had to admit I was more than a little skeptical when I heard about MIA and her new album Matangi. She had made no secret of the fact that she was a political artist with a message and that she had solid pop sensibilities. I mean, the critics sure seemed to think so, given the rave reviews her albums have tended to receive - and yet, until I reviewed this album, I had no interest whatsoever in MIA. I had heard 'Paper Planes' and 'Boyz' and thought, 'Nope, I don't need any of that, those songs are vapid and incredibly obnoxious'. But I figured, hey, I was probably being unfair and there isn't much coming out in the end of this month anyways, so I decided to go through MIA's discography and give her a fair chance. And...

Eh, maybe it's not for me. Look, I mostly respect what MIA is trying to do and I can't deny she's got a gift for genre-hopping sound collages that will be unlike anything you'll ever hear, but it's not clicking for me and I know exactly why. Part of it is her voice - it's not my thing, I can accept that - part of it is her delivery - it never feels raw enough or emotionally drawn enough to really get to me - and part of it is the fact the lyrics just don't work nearly as well as they should. Yes, they're descriptive, yes, they fit the tone of the instrumentation and production - but there's no nuance here and little populism. It's unbridled and incredibly straightforward and yet lacks the energy to justify the simplicity of the approach - almost to the point of propagandizing the far-left attitudes she sings about. And while the emotional response can be compelling (when it's even there), to me it feels shallow, a stark painting that might put forward an interesting image, but lacking in dimension.

And maybe that's enough - her first album Arular was very much in this vein, and while it wasn't bad, its lack of cohesiveness did show (then again, that did seem like the point). Her second album Kala was a bit better, with 'Jimmy' being the standout track for actually having a melody worth remembering, but with the inclusion of more electronica to create a more cohesive sound, it felt like some of the texture and rawness that characterized Arular was jettisoned, which wasn't a good sign. But then again, the loss of texture should have been the last thing I was concerned about with MAYA, which seemed to be M.I.A.'s attempt to fuse internet-inspired industrial music with her usual schtick, and all it ended up doing was giving me a massive migraine. Not only did the lyrics prove M.I.A. had nothing interesting or all that insightful to say about the Internet, the instrumentation lost any hint of cohesion and only amplified the klaxon-esque howling that has always been the worst part of M.I.A.'s instrumentation. I could imagine industrial musicians like Trent Reznor coming to this album and muttering, 'Who the hell is responsible for this messy, incoherent, poorly mixed and painfully shallow nonsense?' To be fair, it was probably the first album that came remotely close to backing M.I.A.'s continued assertions she was inspired by hardcore punk, and songs like 'Meds and Feds' were easily the best on the record, but that's not saying much. And really, after MAYA, I was a little optimistic - I mean, it can't get worse than that, can it?