FUCK MIA

[skanknsmile]

Oh, I've been around. I have had to listen to my radio station play that goddamn song for the past year. I really just cannot stand her. Her music is bland and she rides on the fact that she was a street preformer for so long and then she made it big. She just isn't good. The only redeeming quality about it is that its catchy, but that can be said about Fall Out Boy or cute is what we aim for or anything else along those lines. I know they are completely different styles, but each of those are perpetuated by the same hype churn that produces artists with nothing truely redeeming about them.

I'm going to referenced the bold lines above.

The first part is subjective. I cannot decide what is "bland" for you, but I can defend her music as it is anything but. M.I.A. is taking music from Sri Lanka and the like and mixing it w/ sounds from the UK and American hip-hop. She is a very diverse artist and no two of her songs sound the same. There's upbeat numbers, hip-hop bangers, world music, dance, etc, etc...

Also, Maya never rode the coattails of being a street performer to gain popularity. She gained popularity from filming which lead her to in touch with Peaches and it snowballed from there. I thiiiiiiiiink that was back in 2003 and her mixtape dropped in 2004, so even if she did gain popularity from street performances it was that long of a time period.

The second part of your argument doesn't really make sense. Yes M.I.A. gained a lot of her popularity based on hype, however, not too many folks outside of the blogosphere cared about Arular. It wasn't until Kala came out and now "Paper Planes" being featured all over the place did she really become popular. Hype is everywhere and shows up in different shapes and forms. I first heard Bomb the Music Industry because my friends were hyping them up, should I not listen to them?

I don't care if you don't like M.I.A., but don't make blatantly false statements, it makes you look silly.

Also, how could you not know that the song sampled "Straight to Hell" right off the bat? Are you sure you're even that big of a fan of the Clash?

I'm not saying that sampling hasn't elevated musicians to great highs. But what I am saying is that riding your single off of a song that has been composed by an artist, a talented artist nonetheless who didn't even produce that as one of their singles, is a bit weak.

Look at Alien Ant Farm. They covered a Michael Jackson song to turn that into their greatest hit and they were never able to follow that up. Why? Because someone before them already wrote the song and then they were able to catch that with the "beat of the moment" if you will and re-work the song into something that the kids would enjoy, with a little bit more angst than MJ truly planned.

Transfer that to MIA: She takes a song that has been written, juxtaposes that on top of her "it's hip to dance and act like I'm hot shit" beats and she has her single.

I am in no way dogging on the hip-hop artist who create their own beats and make fucking killer songs. Look at Ghostface who does vocal and sound samples but makes them totally his own songs(see: the Champ) or Saul Williams who can diversify his work and make something ground breaking and new in the hip-hop and indie rap realm and still hold himself (and I know about the nike commercials and I am already over that) or the beastie boys, the FUCKING beastie boys writing an all instrumental album just for the hell of it. And you want to tell me that MIA is the most ground breaking thing in underground indie dance trip-hop and that her samples are fresh?

I cannot agree to that.

I guess my beef is more with her hype and general lack of originality than her person. So, that being said: fuck her hype, and gently bludgeon Mathangi Arulpragsam.

p.s. dunn dun dun dun duhdadundun. It's not the same!

[kirbypuckett]

I'm going to referenced the bold lines above.

The first part is subjective. I cannot decide what is "bland" for you, but I can defend her music as it is anything but. M.I.A. is taking music from Sri Lanka and the like and mixing it w/ sounds from the UK and American hip-hop. She is a very diverse artist and no two of her songs sound the same. There's upbeat numbers, hip-hop bangers, world music, dance, etc, etc...

Also, Maya never rode the coattails of being a street performer to gain popularity. She gained popularity from filming which lead her to in touch with Peaches and it snowballed from there. I thiiiiiiiiink that was back in 2003 and her mixtape dropped in 2004, so even if she did gain popularity from street performances it was that long of a time period.

The second part of your argument doesn't really make sense. Yes M.I.A. gained a lot of her popularity based on hype, however, not too many folks outside of the blogosphere cared about Arular. It wasn't until Kala came out and now "Paper Planes" being featured all over the place did she really become popular. Hype is everywhere and shows up in different shapes and forms. I first heard Bomb the Music Industry because my friends were hyping them up, should I not listen to them?

I don't care if you don't like M.I.A., but don't make blatantly false statements, it makes you look silly.

Also, how could you not know that the song sampled "Straight to Hell" right off the bat? Are you sure you're even that big of a fan of the Clash?

I'm not saying that sampling hasn't elevated musicians to great highs. But what I am saying is that riding your single off of a song that has been composed by an artist, a talented artist nonetheless who didn't even produce that as one of their singles, is a bit weak.

Look at Alien Ant Farm. They covered a Michael Jackson song to turn that into their greatest hit and they were never able to follow that up. Why? Because someone before them already wrote the song and then they were able to catch that with the "beat of the moment" if you will and re-work the song into something that the kids would enjoy, with a little bit more angst than MJ truly planned.

Transfer that to MIA: She takes a song that has been written, juxtaposes that on top of her "it's hip to dance and act like I'm hot shit" beats and she has her single.

I am in no way dogging on the hip-hop artist who create their own beats and make fucking killer songs. Look at Ghostface who does vocal and sound samples but makes them totally his own songs(see: the Champ) or Saul Williams who can diversify his work and make something ground breaking and new in the hip-hop and indie rap realm and still hold himself (and I know about the nike commercials and I am already over that) or the beastie boys, the FUCKING beastie boys writing an all instrumental album just for the hell of it. And you want to tell me that MIA is the most ground breaking thing in underground indie dance trip-hop and that her samples are fresh?

I cannot agree to that.

I guess my beef is more with her hype and general lack of originality than her person. So, that being said: fuck her hype, and gently bludgeon Mathangi Arulpragsam.

p.s. dunn dun dun dun duhdadundun. It's not the same!

I think your complaints are really misguided and rather trite.

Why is it weak for M.I.A. to sample a lesser known song from a legendary artist? Wouldn't it be easier (and less interesting) if she sampled "Rock the Casbah" or "London Calling?" She is hardly riding that sample to popularity. "Paper Planes" is the 3rd single from Kala, following "Boyz" and "Jimmy."

I'm not sure why you're comparing Alient Ant Farm's cover to this. "Paper Planes" is not a cover, it heavily samples the Clash beat, but that hook appears in the Clash song so briefly that it's not even the main part of the original material. You see the difference? What about an artist like Girl Talk who's songs are solely made up out of parts of other people's work?

I think it's laughable that you're name dropping the Beastie Boys. Yeah, they wrote a [boring] instrumental record, but have you ever even listened to Paul's Boutique? You might want to do some research. Also, M.I.A. is slated to appear on the vocalized version of that Beastie Boys record.

It's quite apparent that you loathe M.I.A. because of the hype. Why are you letting something like that bother you? If anything the hype has died down and she is now being credited as a solid artist. The hype was at its height after Arular and in the months leading up to Kala's release.

I never said she was the most groundbreaking artist either, but she does have quite a level of originality that you're discrediting because it took you a few months to figure out she likes the Clash.

[jpw]

Just to stir up the pot a little more, lets not forget about the Clash getting involved with the early hip hop scene in the 80s.