hint
party record with a siren
So, in summary, the Switch productions sound like his remixes, apart from the tracks actually produced by Switch (Bird Flu and Boyz), which sound like Diplo?
MIA - kala
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So, in summary, the Switch productions sound like his remixes, apart from the tracks actually produced by Switch (Bird Flu and Boyz), which sound like Diplo?
N
nomadologist
Guest
most Americans would piss themselves
N
nomadologist
Guest
One thing I always wonder about people who love her is: do they know that the chorus to Sunshowers (which is the song that initially blew me away) is lifted from Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band? When I realized that I was like, eh. She didn't even write the only good hook on the album!
mistersloane
heavy heavy monster sound
I'd like to know whether the kids she's happily allowing to work with her and give her their 'input' have points credits on her records, otherwise she's just another great example of imperialism knowing no bounds.
mistersloane
heavy heavy monster sound
Big LOL at the IED
seems to me most of the gripes are against the details: the songs are not good enough, her message is not specific enough, etc. but let's look at the basics: she's trying to pull off some kind of pop-grime-dancehall-funk carioca bybrid, she is trying to be political. atleast she is TRYING to do all the right things. whether she's successful or not is hardly ground for hate from where I'm standing.
Gavin
booty bass intellectual
N
nomadologist
Guest
You just outed yourself in more ways than one: we have a mutual friend name Trina who adores you and always told me to read your writing (which I have enjoyed when I've read it)
Why are there no death metal bands from Iraq? Or any other bands (that I've heard of) for that matter?
If it doesn't exist yet, I'm sure Iraqi pop is going to be awesome when it finally happens.
N
nomadologist
Guest
Those are pretty big gripes if you ask me..
Gavin
booty bass intellectual
Yeah I figured this out a while ago. I still have the Masters at Work mp3s you put on the StyPod way back when.
As far as death metal, didn't Vice go to Iraq to find just that? There's like one death metal band in Iraq I think.
http://vice.typepad.com/vice_magazine/2007/05/baghdad_heavy_m.html
Rock music didn't really take hold in the Middle East as much as arabesque pop. Maybe because people still get way freaked about the sexuality? Check out the comments on this Lebanese singer's video, which is less racy than like the Disney Channel stuff.
Also you can't dance to metal, and most people like to dance to their music.
Death metal is big in Asia though... according to my former prof it is like the official protest music of Indonesia.
That's some heavy shit on those links you posted, disturbingly beautiful. Such a doomy, fatalistic, resolve to that music... Thanks for the links.
N
nomadologist
Guest
I was just listening to MAW the other day, it's damn good! I can up the rest of the albums at home.
That video is amazing--this girl is gorgeous, I'm surprised she hasn't been signed to a major label. Lollipop licking notwithstanding I think she could make it in the American market...
(I learned a few new ways to say "slut" from those comments)
That video is amazing--this girl is gorgeous, I'm surprised she hasn't been signed to a major label. Lollipop licking notwithstanding I think she could make it in the American market...
(I learned a few new ways to say "slut" from those comments)
Gavin
booty bass intellectual
On topic: I like the M.I.A. album, better than the first. I prefer Switch to Richard X (didn't he do a lot of Arular?) but I never really got into his stuff too much (I do like Ms. Thing's "Love Guide" though).
As far as message, yeah, I can't understand what she's saying either, and what message exists is probably convoluted/silly, so it's probably better that way. I prefer to get my politics from what I read. I'm down with the weird abstract lyrical stuff, and I dig the other pop song quotations. I think the rapping is actually a little tighter on this, and excellent wordsmithery isn't often a criterion for judging RAP albums (people rating "Party Like a Rock Star" for example), and this AIN'T RAP (and she cut down on the oh-oh-oh yelpings, so let's credit that too). I'm in it for the beats, which I think are great for the most part. Switching out dancehall for bmore was a good move, and the quotations from other genres are more integrated into a solid aesthetic (instead of like Bucky Done Gun which was a straight funk carioca rip, although a good one. P.S. Diplo credited himself with production on that until DJ Marlboro called him out - fodder for the Diplo haters).
And I'm hyped for some great remixes. Anyone want to get all fantasy baseball on this?
Anybody heard the cover of Kaiser Chiefs she did over the bookshelf riddim?
As far as message, yeah, I can't understand what she's saying either, and what message exists is probably convoluted/silly, so it's probably better that way. I prefer to get my politics from what I read. I'm down with the weird abstract lyrical stuff, and I dig the other pop song quotations. I think the rapping is actually a little tighter on this, and excellent wordsmithery isn't often a criterion for judging RAP albums (people rating "Party Like a Rock Star" for example), and this AIN'T RAP (and she cut down on the oh-oh-oh yelpings, so let's credit that too). I'm in it for the beats, which I think are great for the most part. Switching out dancehall for bmore was a good move, and the quotations from other genres are more integrated into a solid aesthetic (instead of like Bucky Done Gun which was a straight funk carioca rip, although a good one. P.S. Diplo credited himself with production on that until DJ Marlboro called him out - fodder for the Diplo haters).
And I'm hyped for some great remixes. Anyone want to get all fantasy baseball on this?
Anybody heard the cover of Kaiser Chiefs she did over the bookshelf riddim?
N
nomadologist
Guest
Yeah, when I criticize MIA's lack of rigorous politics, it's not because I really wish she included a stronger political stance--in general, I don't like "political" music. I wish she'd left out politics altogether and made a party record uncluttered by appropriated white guilt.
Gavin
booty bass intellectual
The political music I like is almost always in spite of the politics, though it probably helps when I'm sympathetic (see Public Enemy).
I've been dipping my toes into some working class folk/bluegrass stuff... I dig the politics on that stuff more, maybe because of the sardonic, practically hopeless tone to a lot of it, like "I will work this mine till it eats me" type stuff. Could be my Marxist imagination running away with me, but I like to think you can hear a real class consciousness there, complete with all the misery that romantic accounts leave out (and a good deal of humor). Unlike your typical "call to arms" agit-pop that's totally meaningless in such an apolitical consumerist society. I mean, what can a pop star do besides tell you to vote Dem and buy a Prius? Come out with a cool line of printed hoodies (note to MIA: please come out with cool line of printed hoodies a la "Galang" video)?
I've been dipping my toes into some working class folk/bluegrass stuff... I dig the politics on that stuff more, maybe because of the sardonic, practically hopeless tone to a lot of it, like "I will work this mine till it eats me" type stuff. Could be my Marxist imagination running away with me, but I like to think you can hear a real class consciousness there, complete with all the misery that romantic accounts leave out (and a good deal of humor). Unlike your typical "call to arms" agit-pop that's totally meaningless in such an apolitical consumerist society. I mean, what can a pop star do besides tell you to vote Dem and buy a Prius? Come out with a cool line of printed hoodies (note to MIA: please come out with cool line of printed hoodies a la "Galang" video)?
I haven't really picked up that she has a political message, other than of her whole persona and sound being kind of an aesthetics-as-political-statement. Not really any cohesive message other than that she's trying to be a vague pop-presence for under-represented third-world cultures. Or am I reading it wrong? It's a bit jumbled and awkward but I find it kind of endearing, she seems earnest at least. Nothing wrong with aesthetics as politics IMO.
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Charlie George
Member
In terms of Diplo helping her make a name for herself. She made a name for herself when she put out Galang which was and still is an amazing record. Everything came off the back of that and the boyfriend wasn't even in the picture then. Also, she's made great records with other people - Diplo certainly hasn't. The tragedy is that she didn't actually make more records with the people that helped her with Galang because that was a very well produced record.