MIA - kala

N

nomadologist

Guest
Oh how I wish that part wasn't in the song...

her lyrics are just...terrible.

and the production on Kala is whack. it is all mid-rangey and ugly with distorted treble in all of the wrong places and the most boring BPM you can imagine rules most of the album.

i tried, and tried, and tried with kala but it really truly sounds unlistenable to me. it's been a long time since i heard something that was unlistenably bad in a purely abstract sonic way.
 
N

nomadologist

Guest
Does she remind anyone else a bit of Adam Ant? Obviously though, he had better tunes. :p

yeah, like Tht said, Malcolm McLaren already gave the world Bow Wow Wow and Adam Ant already wrote Ant Music--MIA just seems superfluous.
 

wonk_vitesse

radio eros
downer

agree with above post , flicked through the album today , ? . i like 'bird flu' but that's about it, half-finished ideas, so many interestng beatz out there these days, if u can't get that right then :(
 

Gavin

booty bass intellectual
and the production on Kala is whack. it is all mid-rangey and ugly with distorted treble in all of the wrong places and the most boring BPM you can imagine rules most of the album.

I dunno, the bass bangs pretty hard in the car, especially the first track and the Blaqstarr one that sounds like acid house + baltimore club.

I even like the clumsy African guy rapping, which I hated at first... "You think it's tough now, come to Africa" all chopped n shit. MIA is at her screechy worst in that one though.
 

gumdrops

Well-known member
im divided on this album now. i cant decide if its crap or brilliant. its pretty equal on both fronts, usually at the same time.
 
N

nomadologist

Guest
i'm really confused--where are the brilliant parts?

it's pretty much nails on a chalkboard to me, the entire thing
 

gek-opel

entered apprentice
This album is just so boring.

I've listened to it. It exists. It lacks any kind of excitement. Its not even irritating!
 
Last edited:
N

nomadologist

Guest
it's not irritating for me except in the production. the beats are really really lame. the lyrics are cringe-worthy.

but you're right in that it's a lot more boring than i'd expected based on the rave reviews it got. the beats are especially neither here nor there

i think it suffers conceptually from "trying too hard" to be so NOW and relevant that it's really neither
 

gek-opel

entered apprentice
I was so underwhelmed on every front I struggle to recall much of it. The rave reviews are totally incomprehensible! This album pretty much defines "meh". Also what a duff Timba-track given the on fire-esque form the man's been in of late...
 
Last edited:
N

nomadologist

Guest
she must have known that it sucked when it was about to be released, hence the indignant/defensive pitchfork interview.

kala sucks for reasons that have nothing to do with either gender or diplo, unfortunately for mia.
 
N

nomadologist

Guest
what a duff Timba-track given the on fire-esque form the man's been in of late...

I'm going on record to predict Timbaland only gets better over the next couple of years. I know I've read Blissblog and other places where writers are complaining that they don't want to have another year go by where they have to praise T's genius, but I think about it this way: there was only one Phil Specter, Trevor Horn, Tony Visconti, etc.
 

zhao

there are no accidents
ok... i think you are right. i can't bring myself to listen to hardly any of the songs all the way through second time around...
 

gek-opel

entered apprentice
To be sure. The problem is that she IS on to a decent enough idea. To my mind the whole thing is sunk when a single tune excites on a pop or a sonic-thrill level. I'm re-listening to it now actually, there's an irredeemable lameness to the whole affair which is more extensive than merely authenticity issues-- it falls between two stools, the authentically grimy and the thrillingly trashy (or alternatively the thrillingly grimy and the authentically trashy...). On that score at least "Jimmy" works by being toe-curlingly neon bangkok-ish pop.
 
Last edited:
N

nomadologist

Guest
i'm afraid to put this on at work. the video for jimmy is pretty mesmerizing with the sound off...
 

gumdrops

Well-known member
i do like jimmy a lot, if only cos i find myself incredibly turned on whenever she says 'achaa'. even that song though, i dont really return to it and like it as much as i did when i first got this album. maybe i overplayed it too much, or maybe theres just nothing much there to return to.
 

Eric

Mr Moraigero
I have not made it all the way through any of the songs on this new record. I just find them embarassing at some point. Jimmy is the best of the lot but ruined for me by the fact that the original is so many times better ...
 
Top