2010 Bands You Can Ignore #2: M.I.A.

1.12.2010

2010 Bands You Can Ignore #2: M.I.A.

M.I.A. Would rather listen to Vampire Weekend rhyming “slave trade” with “getting laid” than another shitty M.I.A. album.

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Editor’s note: 2010 Bands You Can Ignore: Bands you can ignore this year. And probably next year.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 12th, 2010 at 3:04 pm and is filed under 2010, Bands You Can Ignore. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Ryan

BITCH PLEASE, Vampire Weekend sucks.

J.P.

"She’s a terrible vocalist. Can’t rap, can’t sing. She’s a provocative lyricist and an occasionally interesting producer; music-wise, that’s about it"

....and yet you're gush-crushing everyday for Joanna. Fucking. Newsome?! The irony inherent there should cause this site to fold in upon itself.

David Greenwald

@Pantha Basically: She's a terrible vocalist. Can't rap, can't sing. She's a provocative lyricist and an occasionally interesting producer; music-wise, that's about it. #ignore!

ariel

it's just such a lame topic for a post. it's SO EASY to hate on something and does nothing relevant in informing anyone about anything.

pantha

i guess you're trying trying to suggest that people like the "idea" of M.I.A. — third world rapper, omg! — more than the songs themselves, which is fair. but even as a fan, i'm not immune to the (often obnoxious) way the media handles her, nor the ways she plays into that treatment. it's almost impossible to divorce her music from world context, so if you have a knee-jerk reaction against her then you may never find a "compelling" case.

that said, i still think the music speaks for itself. she does a whole lot to equalize genres that people typically view with artificial barriers, and the attitude of her approach is nearly inscrutable. she knows that the sounds she's making will fundamentally appeal to the same audience she's trying to subvert, so there's an extreme tension behind every song that keeps them re-listenable and propulsive — much like the classic pop formula does. she's able to smuggle ostensibly "fringe" ideas/sounds/etc. by co-opting the mainstream model, making them danceable, etc.

(as a loose comparison, film theorists make a similar argument re: Douglas Sirk's melodramas. he gives his audience the chance to radically encounter their own fears, but it's done within the guise of a popular form.)

pantha

love your website in general, but yeah, this is dumb. there's an argument to be made re: yeasayer but M.I.A. is clearly one of the most 'relevant'/'important' artists of our time. even if you personally can't get into the music, it's naive to dismiss her.

David Greenwald

Pantha, I would love it if you could make a compelling case for M.I.A.'s music -- not M.I.A. -- as being "relevant/important."

matthew

For the record, my "Spot on" was in reference to Dave's post, not the commenters. (No offense commenters, but MIA is the terrible.)

floorpaper

definately need a 'take this website off the internet' button.

matthew

Spot on. Thank goodness others feel the same as me.

Carms

Dislike

Philm

Unlike

Kay Randolph

Definitely need a LIKE button here.

sarah

i can get behind this a little better than the last one, thank you

2010 Bands You Can Ignore #2: M.I.A.

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