0113. M.I.A.
Arular
So, what do you get if you take a semi-paranoid semi-militant and lock her into a room with a MC-505 for a year or so? Very interesting results, I'd say.
It's a collage of sound and dancefloor genres with not quite the lyrical content normally used with beats like that as well, M.I.A.'s a full on revolutionary. The one thing this album could have done without is the skits, which, "meaningful" and "artistic" as they might be, just seem like lesser copies of the songs. Anyway, if you can't listen to the whole album, at least check out the tracks Bucky Done Gun and Amazon, cause they're the apex of Arular.
Just too bad the copy I got hold of is the first US release and thus doesn't contain U.R.A.Q.T. (the samples hadn't cleared by the time of release), if only for the last punchline in this foursome "Now Could it be that me and He /
Are tighter than J-lo in her jeans /
And Could it be that me and He /
Are tighter than R.Kelly in his teens".
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…and this was for some reason removed from the list.
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M.I.A.
Kala
So, the second album by everyone's favourite conspiracy theorist replaced her debut in the updated version of the book. Quite frankly I think it's the coward's way out as this is just as good.
Cause nothing's changed here except for more resources to do her thing and the momentum go get some huge guests to appear.
This of course causes that I can't really get annoyed at the ("objectively") sub-par Mango Pickle Down River, cause it's just charming that M.I.A. said fuck it and had a couple of kids rap on it [fact check: it's The Wilcannia Mob, a crew of Aboriginal Aussie kids between fourteen and eighteen at the time of Kala's release] - sounds like something off a C60 demo recorded with a regular tape deck.
The real downside of the album is the guest appearance by Timbaland, cause that's a fool that sounds bad in spite of having had every chance to learn.
But the tracks which makes this be a really notable album are the revamping of a Bollywood track into Jimmy, the boat refugee anthem Hussel, also 20 Dollars and Paper Planes. Whether it's about the price of an AK47 in post-war Liberia, or problems with visas it's danceable and irresistable.
