M.I.A. - /\/\/\Y/\ (N.E.E.T.)
3/5
By: Hayley Leaver
There’s a lot to be said about M.I.A: the highly political content of her music, a life rooted in displacement, and the fact that she’s not afraid to have a go at celeb juggernauts like Gaga and Oprah. Then, of course, there was that ginge-ocide video, the New York Times-journo-phone number debacle, and that Grammy performance where she quite literally nearly popped out a baby halfway through. All the YouTube rage aside, M.I.A – otherwise known as Maya Arulpragasam – certainly ain’t one to mind her P’s and Q’s. While she may build her political outbursts on dodgy foundations, it’s only fair that we remove /\/\/\Y/\ from any overshadowing media attention caused by the artist’s ranting.
Her third studio album, Maya (stylised as /\/\/\Y/\ - so down with the typography kids), is released on M.I.A’s own N.E.E.T records amid a flurry of media attention for not all the right reasons. Having released one of the most popular songs of 2008, the London-born artist has successfully infiltrated both the UK and the US charts with often overlooked and intermittently questionable lyrical content; it’s easy to forget that the gloriously hypnotic ‘Paper Planes’ resonates with the words: “Some, some, some I, some I murder/ Some I, some I let go”.
This is why, when listening to M.I.A’s third offering - undeniably lacking in buoyant pop hits like the aforementioned Top 20 single - lyrics such as “’Cause you tweeting me like tweety bird on your iPhone” don’t slip by quite as sweetly. And that’s only the third track on the album – wait until you get to ‘Lovalot’, and then perhaps move along quickly. The problem with M.I.A is that putting your money where your mouth is takes more than writing raucously defiant lyrics: it needs backing up with the music that we all know she should be capable of.
However, the sporadic brilliance sits within tracks like ‘It Takes a Muscle’ – a perfect-for-Skins, reggae-pop cover of a 1982 song originally recorded by Dutch band Spectral Display, followed by ‘It Iz What It Iz’, another album highlight with Rihanna-esque R&B suaveness. It’s ‘Tell Me Why’ that truly stands out as the best track of the LP: a honeyed acapella cherry on top of the album, one that should provide evidence for why M.I.A is not only pretty interesting to watch in case she bitchslaps Lady Gaga, but also because at her best, she’s so much more fascinating as a musician than she is accurate as a source of political reference.
Artists in this article: Mia
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