M.I.A.’s “hotly anticipated” third album is essentially 50 minutes of self-indulgent ass noise, representing what we can only hope is rock bottom in her de-evolution from eccentric, yet coherent glitch-funk electro-hop to artistic masturbation by a deluded hipster.
M.I.A.’s debut Arular had hooks, verses, choruses, bridges, singles, and hits even. Hell, almost every song on the album was fit for summer mixtapes, if not the radio. The follow-up, Kala was barely listenable by comparison, as if her success gave her the confidence she didn’t need, to question herself not often enough. Song structures disintegrated, her big lucky hit was lazily lifted from someone else, and 20 Dollar wasn’t even half as good as 10 Dollar.
We held out some hope that /\/\/\Y/\ might be a return to form- any form, mind you- and the opening intro The Message is exciting, for 59 seconds while a voice (not M.I.A.’s) raps over a dirty beat and blaring sirens:
“Headbone connects to the neckbone / Neckbone connects to the armbone / Armbone connects to the handbone / Handbone connects to the internet / Connected to the Google / Connected to the government…”
The premise is simple, and not especially creative, but it’s everything we have come to expect from M.I.A. on a good day: Sounds that are obnoxious, even maddening by themselves, assembled into endearing, danceable collages, with an anti-hip punk rock, subversive commentary that jabs culture with a sharp stick.
What follows directly is Steppin’ Up, with a beat constructed from samples of trash kits and shrill air drills that would almost work better than it should if not for M.I.A.’s lazy, forced, and painfully drawn-out rhymes. I’d love to be able to say that it’s just a direction that I’m not personally feeling, but it’s the same old M.I.A. we once dug, being a far inferior version of herself, despite the promise of the song title. There’s no spark, no inspiration; she’s just dialing it in if she’s not parodying herself.
XXXO has a bubblegum pop hook lost in a swamp of enervating repetition, and Teqkilla is basically the same, but worse, and without the hook. It’s cacophony; An artist lost up her own asshole, throwing shit against a wall and calling it expression because she was thinking about something vaguely meaningful when she threw it.
For the most part, these 16 tracks fall into one of two categories: Lazy songs, and unlistenable garbage that does not even qualify as song. Lovalot, It Takes A Muscle, Tell Me Why and (possibly) Space fit into that first category. As does lead single Born Free, which we realize is nowhere near as interesting as a song by itself, without the accompanying video. Try it. Hit play, and minimize the window. Then let us know how far you got.
The rest is absolutely worthless. M.I.A. gets credit for little more than putting her name down on the paper. In fact, the only upside to /\/\/\Y/\ is that it’s a step forward towards either a fourth album that couldn’t possibly be worse, or a worn out welcome and ultimately a has-been status, which would take M.I.A. off our radar for good.
- 1. The Message
- 2. Born Free
- 3. Meds And Feds
- 4. Lovealot
- 5. Tequilla
- 6. It Is What It Is
- 7. XXXO
- 8. Tell Me Why
- 9. Story Told
- 10. Space
“… essentially 50 minutes of self-indulgent ass noise, representing what we can only hope is rock bottom in her de-evolution from eccentric, yet coherent glitch-funk electro-hop to artistic masturbation by a deluded hipster.”
In honor of a recently revived lengendary animated series…
Uuuuhhhh, so you’re saying it’s awesome? Huh huh huh.
Now you see her like I do.
Who? Didn’t this gal cover that SSSC song Paper Airplanes?
What an immature, unfairly biased review.
oh, blow me. everyone says negative reviews are “unfairly biased.” total bullshit. arular was a 5 star album, kala maybe 3, and this one is just lazy fucking noise. would love to be able to say we have another great album to listen to, but this one ain’t it. fucking hipster.
jesus tap dancing christ, this review read my fucking mind.
Perfect response Skwerl…I’m tempted to download the record despite your review just to see what it is like.
I like Born Free without the video…but it wouldn’t surprise me if the rest of it was shit.
MIA is bad, but I noticed Skwerl didn’t challenge the charge of being “immature.” Haha.
of course not. i’m very immature. fuck, i have a music blog. what do you expect?
Thirty seconds. Then my attention wavered and I wanted to see what was going on in the video. It works in a soundtrackish sort of way, but agreed, not a “song” per say. Can’t say I’d be hitting rewind to hear that one again either.
Crazy video, though. Kinda like an Eric Cartman wet dream.
I saw her on Letterman last night and had absolutely no idea what the fuck had crawled onto my television. That doesn’t really happen with me and music very often.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRSISHxvZUs
This makes her look like a comedy act, pointing and having a laugh at how fucking ridiculous hipsters are. Like Spinal Tap did with hair metal back in the day.
Except it’s not a comedy act, this is forrealz, and it’s beyond embarrassing.
Glad I sat this back down on the shelf at Target. Call it intuition.
How many times did you listen to it? Just asking because I have been listening to this for almost a month (internet rocks) and first few listens I would totally agree with this review. Where are the hooks?? Not one song on there can be played on radio (agreed) but I thought maybe thats what she was going for so I gave it a few more listens and it grew on me. Its not THAT bad, definetly not her best but not a one star record. I mean c’mon you guys gave “lazy” ass GAG gag like two stars and all her songs sound the fuckin same. At least she takes chances maybe not the best ones in this case. I think it would have been easy for her to make a Arulur or Kala part deux but she didnt and I think that says something about her as a artist.
Kind of agree with this point. It doesn’t make her less of an artist just because she got lazy and made a bad record. if anything she’ll prolly learn not to sit on her ass or money and get to work. She’s capable of better.
haha actually gave gaga 2 and a HALF stars but otherwise I agree but her album blows way more??? I listened a few times and it still sucks but her making one far from great record does not mean she should be labeled as a “fashion designer” and not an artist. maybe I’m crazy but im still interested in what she has to say on the next, when she actually gives a shit about what she puts out. She’s rich and doesnt give a shit and prolly getting this out of her system hopefully. she has the formula and knows what people want to hear from her…why didnt she use it? to make things crazier I guess, think that says something too
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She’s not good live, but that’s because she’s not a musician… she’s a fashion designer who’s made a few albums. Which is no excuse, but her albums are what make her such a big deal. I don’t think anyone else could possibly make an album like this, and I give her credit for doing what she wants and saying “fuck you” to all you haters. She’s fucking rich, she doesn’t have to give a damn about what you think. And that’s what this album is all about.
i completely respect this point, and it’s one that i wish i was observant enough to make in my review.
[...] all it will do is waste your time. But it’ll make us feel better about our lives, because we sat through M.I.A.’s new album like 12 times this week, and that shit is five times [...]
http://www.urb.com/2010/07/15/diplo-says-m-i-a-didnt-care-about-new-album
“She didn’t care about it. I was in the studio with her, she didn’t write anything.”
“All she has is a bunch of yes men around her and they kinda suck.”
speculate all you want about diplo’s motives, but my eyes and ears are on the same page here.
i bought it, i listened, and to quote one mr. butt-head, this sucks more than anything that has ever sucked before. all you hipsters can eat my dick if you think otherwise
The opening of this review as well as this gem-”An artist lost up her own asshole, throwing shit against a wall and calling it expression because she was thinking about something vaguely meaningful when she threw it”-are brilliant. Well played, Sir! I concur wholeheartedly. It’s a damn shame to see an artist that blasted out of the starting blocks so strong clearly lose steam mid-stride only to crawl and grasp across the finish line *sigh*
Upon listening to the rest of the record…I conquer!
What a useless piece of shit album. A bunch of wannabe political self promoting dribble. I’m ashamed I even downloaded it for free.
dude what are you smoking? I hated the first album precisely because of all the verses, radio hits and all the other crap you mentioned. Go listen to some Coltrane Ascension, blow your mind open and start listening to new music again from scratch. You cardboard people sicken me. The planet needs progression really, really fast. Namaste.
this review is shit. You are complaining about how an artist evolved in fashion you do not like. Review the music without bias.
No, this review is on the money. I’m a huge MIA fan. I’ve seen her live, I buy her albums without question. And I can’t lie. The album is a self indulgent mess. Here’s a shocker for you: occasionally, a good musician makes a bad album. I’m gonna give this more listens to see if it’s a grower, but MIA is a human being. She’s capable of putting out a bunk record.
A lot of talented artists put a bad album, regardless of genre.
Metallica : St. Anger
Eminem: Encore
Garth Brooks: Chris Gains whatever it was called
Bob Dylan: Several after the 70’s
Kiss: The Elder
Nas: Nastradamus
and so on, this one is M.I.A’s. Honestly though I don’t think she’ll have the staying power of any of the aforementioned artists but I’m just making the point that great artists can sometimes produce shit. For those saying “let it grow on you”, there are a lot of albums that blow you away 1st time around.
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