More MIA
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dubplatestyle
Well-known member
i'm a crappy dancer too, matt! some people just are! we can't help it!!
dubplatestyle
Well-known member
i have to admit i did like "galang" a lot more when i didn't know who made it, where it came from, what it all meant, etc etc.
So is Brazilian Favela funk style appropriation ok, or is it not as worthy as postpunk style appropriation because of the technology used? (I'm referring to Simon's response upthread)
This dissing the audience thing is fun but an artist can't control who is in his/her audience completely. The whole romantization of the "the massive" thing is amusing to me. I don't see any romantization going on regarding indie-rock devotees or middle-aged folks buying up Rod Stewart singing the American songbook.
Simon wrote in a comment on Byron Bitchlaces blog:
"it's not about authentic/inauthenticity per se, it's about a different kind of energy and hunger that you get from these more insular scenes as opposed to the more eclectic, cosmopolitan sensibilty bred in art school (whose products generally have more options than music as a way of making it) you can feel it"
So artschool is sometimes ok (postpunk) but other times it isn't (M.I.A.)? "Street" is ok sometimes but not othertimes(if it's homophobic or sexist).
This dissing the audience thing is fun but an artist can't control who is in his/her audience completely. The whole romantization of the "the massive" thing is amusing to me. I don't see any romantization going on regarding indie-rock devotees or middle-aged folks buying up Rod Stewart singing the American songbook.
Simon wrote in a comment on Byron Bitchlaces blog:
"it's not about authentic/inauthenticity per se, it's about a different kind of energy and hunger that you get from these more insular scenes as opposed to the more eclectic, cosmopolitan sensibilty bred in art school (whose products generally have more options than music as a way of making it) you can feel it"
So artschool is sometimes ok (postpunk) but other times it isn't (M.I.A.)? "Street" is ok sometimes but not othertimes(if it's homophobic or sexist).
believekevin
Well-known member
It's getting into US Weekly (ummm... Mirror?) territory to discuss sex & romance between dip and mia.
I still haven't heard the MIA album but several folks mentioned that the baile connection is all but non-existent as it was one of Diplo's contributions to the PFT mixtape.
I still haven't heard the MIA album but several folks mentioned that the baile connection is all but non-existent as it was one of Diplo's contributions to the PFT mixtape.
mate, you're really kidding yourself with this pose that authenticity doesn't matter - and this is central to the point that i hinted at earlier. the vast majority of people on your side of the argument are almost without exception trumpeting this stance but i can't help but get the feeling that this is a pretty clear case of lack of self-awareness.
authenticity *does* appear to matter to you and is absolutely, unequivocally at the core of why MIA is so popular. every story has hailed her work as post-modern, boundary-breaking music without borders, her as the epitome of otherness, her refugee status rendering her permanently out of context and thus able to pluck her cultural life from wherever she sees fit, without constraint.
key to this is "her refugee status". this is the backstory you're all really digging and, i'm sorry, but that's a kind of realness - a titillatingly exotic, brutally *real* tale of hard-knock migration.
But Dave, this is projection of the highest order. I like the MIA album a lot but remain unseduced by the backstory, like I suspect the vast majority of listeners if she ever blows up (no pun intended). And actually, speaking as someone who would not be here if it wasn't for my father having to flee revolution in Zanzibar, I resent that quite strongly. 'Freedom Fighter Skit' makes me cringe and I am far from convinced by the whole schtick but it doesn't make the actual album any less exciting for me, just as all the far more overtly violent gangsta posturing in 'Cock Back' doesn't make the actual SOUND of the record any less awesome.
Can we have a moratorium on the phrase "lack of self-awareness", please? Its terribly patronising.
authenticity *does* appear to matter to you and is absolutely, unequivocally at the core of why MIA is so popular. every story has hailed her work as post-modern, boundary-breaking music without borders, her as the epitome of otherness, her refugee status rendering her permanently out of context and thus able to pluck her cultural life from wherever she sees fit, without constraint.
key to this is "her refugee status". this is the backstory you're all really digging and, i'm sorry, but that's a kind of realness - a titillatingly exotic, brutally *real* tale of hard-knock migration.
But Dave, this is projection of the highest order. I like the MIA album a lot but remain unseduced by the backstory, like I suspect the vast majority of listeners if she ever blows up (no pun intended). And actually, speaking as someone who would not be here if it wasn't for my father having to flee revolution in Zanzibar, I resent that quite strongly. 'Freedom Fighter Skit' makes me cringe and I am far from convinced by the whole schtick but it doesn't make the actual album any less exciting for me, just as all the far more overtly violent gangsta posturing in 'Cock Back' doesn't make the actual SOUND of the record any less awesome.
Can we have a moratorium on the phrase "lack of self-awareness", please? Its terribly patronising.
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blissblogger
Well-known member
art into pop
steve K, ever vigilant for inconsistencies!
w/ the Slits, who knows, if i'd been deeply invested in dub and roots as a 16 year old i might have thought what they did a travesty, but i then and still today don't even hear what they did as reggae so much -- it's such a creative mauling of the sources -- they're not like UB40, say, who did get a lot of flak, a little unfairly i think, but were a straightforward rendition of reggae
art schools are obviously the source of a huge amount of the greatness in the history of pop, from the beatles on -- this is especially the case in the UK -- simon frith and howard horne wrote a really good book on this subject, called Art Into Pop -- however (and i already said this on the blog, jeez) it would be fair to say that the sensibility bred in them is pretty different to the sensibility you get in the more street scenes (which are also not innocent of ideas of art, pushing the envelope, expression etc), and the sensibility might in some ways actually be inimical to the very qualities that are most exciting about said musics
i mean it's not impossible that art school bred musician could come up with a take on grime/dancehall/etc etc that was incredibly powerful and as exciting as the genuine article -- but for me there's always going to be an element of redundancy there
like that David Bowie record that was taking off jungle, it wasn't bad at all, the single 'little wonder' or whatever it wsa called, was fun. and he had done his research, he knew about thigns like congo natty which is pretty fucking impressive. but still, when you've already got omni trio why bother?
re romanticising the massive, well i guess if i was into those musics you refer to then maybe i would romanticize their audiences -- i'm sure there are metal fans who romanticize the metal community and get similarly caught up in arguments about who's real and who's not --
it would be quite fun to approach the following of say Jimmy Buffet as a massive. you could see the Deadheads as a massive. any music based around the "changing same" perhaps
romanticizing is the wrong word anyway, it's simply recognising that this how those scenes work, these are the dynamics of creativity, the flow back and forth between the djs/producers/mc and the crowd (the crowd containing a high proportion of amateur and aspiring djs/producers/mcs)
for me scenius beats genius most of the time -- the work of a lone artist has to be really exceptionally good to beat that
it's also about "spirit" -- and the spirit of a collectivity is always going to be more potent, except with a few visionary or incredibly weird characters like a Captain beefheart or Mark E. Smith -- for an individual to have the "spirit" quotient on a par with a scene or movement, it's pretty rare
steve K, ever vigilant for inconsistencies!
w/ the Slits, who knows, if i'd been deeply invested in dub and roots as a 16 year old i might have thought what they did a travesty, but i then and still today don't even hear what they did as reggae so much -- it's such a creative mauling of the sources -- they're not like UB40, say, who did get a lot of flak, a little unfairly i think, but were a straightforward rendition of reggae
art schools are obviously the source of a huge amount of the greatness in the history of pop, from the beatles on -- this is especially the case in the UK -- simon frith and howard horne wrote a really good book on this subject, called Art Into Pop -- however (and i already said this on the blog, jeez) it would be fair to say that the sensibility bred in them is pretty different to the sensibility you get in the more street scenes (which are also not innocent of ideas of art, pushing the envelope, expression etc), and the sensibility might in some ways actually be inimical to the very qualities that are most exciting about said musics
i mean it's not impossible that art school bred musician could come up with a take on grime/dancehall/etc etc that was incredibly powerful and as exciting as the genuine article -- but for me there's always going to be an element of redundancy there
like that David Bowie record that was taking off jungle, it wasn't bad at all, the single 'little wonder' or whatever it wsa called, was fun. and he had done his research, he knew about thigns like congo natty which is pretty fucking impressive. but still, when you've already got omni trio why bother?
re romanticising the massive, well i guess if i was into those musics you refer to then maybe i would romanticize their audiences -- i'm sure there are metal fans who romanticize the metal community and get similarly caught up in arguments about who's real and who's not --
it would be quite fun to approach the following of say Jimmy Buffet as a massive. you could see the Deadheads as a massive. any music based around the "changing same" perhaps
romanticizing is the wrong word anyway, it's simply recognising that this how those scenes work, these are the dynamics of creativity, the flow back and forth between the djs/producers/mc and the crowd (the crowd containing a high proportion of amateur and aspiring djs/producers/mcs)
for me scenius beats genius most of the time -- the work of a lone artist has to be really exceptionally good to beat that
it's also about "spirit" -- and the spirit of a collectivity is always going to be more potent, except with a few visionary or incredibly weird characters like a Captain beefheart or Mark E. Smith -- for an individual to have the "spirit" quotient on a par with a scene or movement, it's pretty rare
Some thoughts.
1 MIA/Dancehall=Sov/Grime doesn't fly cos Sov is bubblegum grime. The objection I keep coming back to about MIA is that she is - or aspires to be - coffeetable shanty house, the one whose album every mildly bohemian middle class couple buy to hear what the fuss is about all this stuff. She is to shanty house what I dunno Morcheeba are to trip-hop, if you scale it down appropriately.
2 There's a difference between art school and style mag. And she's on the wrong side of it.
1 MIA/Dancehall=Sov/Grime doesn't fly cos Sov is bubblegum grime. The objection I keep coming back to about MIA is that she is - or aspires to be - coffeetable shanty house, the one whose album every mildly bohemian middle class couple buy to hear what the fuss is about all this stuff. She is to shanty house what I dunno Morcheeba are to trip-hop, if you scale it down appropriately.
2 There's a difference between art school and style mag. And she's on the wrong side of it.
art schools were definitely a source of really interesting stuff from the beatles up to postpunk, though perhaps the closing off of working class access since abolishing free education has removed some of the friction, mainly class based, that drove much of that- most punks eg were (correct me if i'm wrong) lower middle or upper-working class- while the resentments and political argument that were (presumably, being born in 1981 
) driving much of that just aren't there anymore, as university is now fairly overwhelmingly what middle class kids just DO when they reach 18....
I'm rambling here but if i were to define an 'art school' music in 2005 it would be the libertines, or bloc party, or their ilk- indie rock about indie rock
can't quite agree with the suggestion that an come of the engagement with 'shanty house' on the part of middle class art school kids that MIA (debatably) represents must by neccessity be 'redundant', or that the sensibility is inimical, but that could be because i find that a very depressing idea- that all we can do is watch, and theorise. but yeah, it does lack the friction, the extraneous stuff like politics, lack of technique, an actual 'scene' that postpunk may well have had, and surely the (rather silly) terrorist chic angle is a groping towards this? albeit an unconvincing one?
and there are all sorts of elements in 'piracy...' from synthpop and electroclash (i.e the 'sweet dreams' bit) which are fairly purely art school but that's another argument altogether
'2 There's a difference between art school and style mag. And she's on the wrong side of it.'
don't really see the divide here
) driving much of that just aren't there anymore, as university is now fairly overwhelmingly what middle class kids just DO when they reach 18....I'm rambling here but if i were to define an 'art school' music in 2005 it would be the libertines, or bloc party, or their ilk- indie rock about indie rock
can't quite agree with the suggestion that an come of the engagement with 'shanty house' on the part of middle class art school kids that MIA (debatably) represents must by neccessity be 'redundant', or that the sensibility is inimical, but that could be because i find that a very depressing idea- that all we can do is watch, and theorise. but yeah, it does lack the friction, the extraneous stuff like politics, lack of technique, an actual 'scene' that postpunk may well have had, and surely the (rather silly) terrorist chic angle is a groping towards this? albeit an unconvincing one?
and there are all sorts of elements in 'piracy...' from synthpop and electroclash (i.e the 'sweet dreams' bit) which are fairly purely art school but that's another argument altogether
'2 There's a difference between art school and style mag. And she's on the wrong side of it.'
don't really see the divide here
believekevin
Well-known member
My only real issue with MIA is that miauk.com charged my credit card back in January but I have yet to see the vinyl in my mailbox!
Grievous Angel
Beast of Burden
Yeah, I raised my eyebrows at that too, Si's grasp of economics seems tgo be at the level of mercantilismpuretokyo said:
Grievous Angel
Beast of Burden
Matt, I keep tellin ya, quit smokin that shitWOEBOT said:
Anyway. I tried d/ling her stuff but there wasn't anything out there, so I headed over to the site to listen to the samples. But first the back story. I haven't read any interviews with her, but the story told on the site seems "OK" to me -- i.e. I don't think she's making a meal of it and she's not, on her site, making herself out to be a Tamil Tiger Kirk Brandon-style Rebel poseur. Just tells the story. Maybe she does that elsewhere, I dunno -- she wasn't doing too much terrorist poseuring in the Independent interview anyway. Maybe the Molotov cocktail / hand grenade imagery is a bit shit but then again, that's the kind of pictures kids in warzones will draw sometimes. .
So, the tunes. I thought Hombre, Sunshowers, Pull Up the People were all pretty good, nice hooks, I like the flow of her lyrics, good multi-tracking of her voice... strikes me that a record of similar quality from a male of similar background wouldn't get the controversy evidenced on this thread. But a record like that wouldn't sell in the mainstream. I think there's just a touch of sexism in the anti-MIA sentiment. I think maybe a comparison with Neneh Cherry makes sense. Or that fantastic Bang Zoom Lets Go Go tune -- pop takes rap, adds hooks and weight, produces a fab tune.
That video of her doing galangalang in her rehearsal studio though -- it's genius! It's bastardised, crunchy, groovy dance music you can sing along to. Ace.
I suspect a lot of this boils down to trendy music snobs getting pissed off that their "secret" music is crossing over -- which I think is silly cos it doesn't sound all that much like favela funk or dancehall to me. It's pretty obviously a pop hybrid -- it's got a touch of dance music scenius, but it's also got some pop producer scenius too, IYKWIM. A touch of Pete Waterman.
And it's alright.
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Grievous Angel
Beast of Burden
WOEBOT said:
Three words*:
"No No, No No No, No No-No No, No-No
There's No Limits"
Surely if I can like 2Unlimited** I can like Mia?
That made me laugh out loud!
* I think Matt's referring to some bit of post modern theory that's totally gone over my head...
**TECHNO TECHNO TECHNO TECHNO!
blissblogger
Well-known member
au contraire
>a lot of this boils down to trendy music snobs getting pissed off that their "secret" music is crossing over
not in my case, i'm eager for grime to cross over -- i was extremely disappointed that 'I luv u' only got to number 29, -- i really thought it would be #1. was slightly disappointed that 'Pow/FWD' didn't bust into the Top 10 but got to the edge of it, am buzzed that Kano has gone in the charts and looks like he's going to really happen this year, excited that Lady Sov has got signed in a mega deal. But there is a difference between the thing itself crossing over and some not-quite-right external take on it crossing over. not that MIA's record even sounds grimy, but etc etc etc, that is the general principle under discussion...
"competes" doesn't just include economically, but in a wider sense media, credit, people feeling like they've "done" a genre when they've heard one example of it (especially when it isn't even really an example of it). you possibly have little idea how magazines work, especially in America -- they really do operate on a "we'll let one through" mindset. So Moby was the techno represensative, Goldie and later Roni Size was the drum'n'bass poster child. it's like a quota system. i know whereof i speak here.
i'm not heavily invested in dancehall, love it but i barely keep up with it, but i think it is a perfectly legitimate annoyance for someone like Stelfox, who really lives the stuff, to feel peeved that for various factors the MIA record will get the critical attention and acclaim that a brilliant album like that Ward 21 one will never get.
the street scenes like grime, dancehall, etc have their poppy currents and own impulses to crossover and i would rather see this emerge organically from the scene itself, as is actually happening with Lady Sov and Kano (although 'typical me' is a misstep sonically, i think--why do hip hop guys often have such a lame idea of "rock"?) etc, or has happenend repeatedly with dancehall with the success of sean paul, beenie man, and shaggy
the sexism angle is just ridiculous -- are you really suggesting that an artist who's female (and brown-skinned) should be immune from criticism? all the evidence would suggest the opposite actually -- a kind of inverse sexism/racism is at at play, in fact -- A/ a "girls just wanna have fun", quasi-feminist sympathy vote c.f. le tigre getting allowances for making defective dance music cos it's diy spirit innit, and B/ an exoticizing that equates all brownskinned peoples as the same, and beyond criticism by dint of their skin
>a lot of this boils down to trendy music snobs getting pissed off that their "secret" music is crossing over
not in my case, i'm eager for grime to cross over -- i was extremely disappointed that 'I luv u' only got to number 29, -- i really thought it would be #1. was slightly disappointed that 'Pow/FWD' didn't bust into the Top 10 but got to the edge of it, am buzzed that Kano has gone in the charts and looks like he's going to really happen this year, excited that Lady Sov has got signed in a mega deal. But there is a difference between the thing itself crossing over and some not-quite-right external take on it crossing over. not that MIA's record even sounds grimy, but etc etc etc, that is the general principle under discussion...
"competes" doesn't just include economically, but in a wider sense media, credit, people feeling like they've "done" a genre when they've heard one example of it (especially when it isn't even really an example of it). you possibly have little idea how magazines work, especially in America -- they really do operate on a "we'll let one through" mindset. So Moby was the techno represensative, Goldie and later Roni Size was the drum'n'bass poster child. it's like a quota system. i know whereof i speak here.
i'm not heavily invested in dancehall, love it but i barely keep up with it, but i think it is a perfectly legitimate annoyance for someone like Stelfox, who really lives the stuff, to feel peeved that for various factors the MIA record will get the critical attention and acclaim that a brilliant album like that Ward 21 one will never get.
the street scenes like grime, dancehall, etc have their poppy currents and own impulses to crossover and i would rather see this emerge organically from the scene itself, as is actually happening with Lady Sov and Kano (although 'typical me' is a misstep sonically, i think--why do hip hop guys often have such a lame idea of "rock"?) etc, or has happenend repeatedly with dancehall with the success of sean paul, beenie man, and shaggy
the sexism angle is just ridiculous -- are you really suggesting that an artist who's female (and brown-skinned) should be immune from criticism? all the evidence would suggest the opposite actually -- a kind of inverse sexism/racism is at at play, in fact -- A/ a "girls just wanna have fun", quasi-feminist sympathy vote c.f. le tigre getting allowances for making defective dance music cos it's diy spirit innit, and B/ an exoticizing that equates all brownskinned peoples as the same, and beyond criticism by dint of their skin
hint
party record with a siren
I don't think it's a matter of crossover or competition.... I've seen kano on my telly far more than MIA... in fact I haven't seen a single one of her videos. if her album goes top 20 I'll be very, very surprised.
I think people are just reacting to / objecting to the column inches. writers talking about writers talking about press releases. which is fine, of course. but it's interesting to note that quite a few people who admit to liking her music here also point out that they heard it before knowing anything about her story / angle / hype.
give dizzee some artwork, a promotional budget and a push and he ends up on band aid 20... do the same for MIA and she just gets mentioned a bit on some blogs... where's the beef?
she's like annie or erlend øye... singing over some music that very clearly owes a lot to, and references, certain "sounds". I may be wrong or ignorant, but I don't remember people being too concerned about them taking attention away from house music, or whatever.
I think people are just reacting to / objecting to the column inches. writers talking about writers talking about press releases. which is fine, of course. but it's interesting to note that quite a few people who admit to liking her music here also point out that they heard it before knowing anything about her story / angle / hype.
give dizzee some artwork, a promotional budget and a push and he ends up on band aid 20... do the same for MIA and she just gets mentioned a bit on some blogs... where's the beef?
she's like annie or erlend øye... singing over some music that very clearly owes a lot to, and references, certain "sounds". I may be wrong or ignorant, but I don't remember people being too concerned about them taking attention away from house music, or whatever.
Grievous Angel
Beast of Burden
blissblogger said:
OK
OK
No, (and not directed to you personally
) I just think there's bit of "spoddy music fans" not liking a girly take on ruff music, going on, IYKWIM. Though I there's the other influences you cite too. Just "a hint" was all I was suggetsing.
Grievous Angel
Beast of Burden
Ironic, I thought it was...blissblogger said: