M.I.A., /\/\ /\ Y /\
Reviewed by: Christian Hagen
One of the toasts of this past decade’s increasingly diverse music community, M.I.A., aka Maya Arulpragasam, has always been musically interested in her cultural heritage as well as her personal and political beliefs. In the past, some of her finest work came from her spirit of adventurous activism; her biggest hit, “Paper Planes,” railed against U.S. Customs agents and political racism.
Now, returning after a three-year absence with /\/\ /\ Y /\ (hereafter referred to as Maya, as close to a self-titled album as she’s had to date), M.I.A. is raging again. But, unfortunately, this time her rage seems to be directed not just at international government entities or abstract hatred, but against her own music.
What other explanation could there be for the industrialized agro-beats that pound and grind and waste the eardrums, particularly throughout the first half of the album? It’s as if M.I.A. decided to make an album which would intentionally alienate everyone, fans and haters alike. If Arular featured a fascinating and worthwhile mix of exotic instruments and computerized effects, and Kala took that idea onto the dance floor in a more impressively streamlined way, Maya does away with exotic, loses control of the effects, and cranks every noise up whether it’s listenable or not. At times, it’s as though the songwriter opened up ProTools and fell asleep on her keyboard, throwing squeals and buzzes and shrieks and pops like every item in a Home Depot and a Best Buy going on and off over and over again, all at the same time.
The opening track, “The Message” is a muddled noise-fest with all the socio-political intelligence of a paranoid technophobe who’s smoked his sixth bowl of the day. It’s impossible to derive almost any pleasure from “Teqkilla” (a play on “tequila”); the song is painful. It’s the sort of music that would play in the background of a fetish dance club in an American Pie-style sex comedy. “Stepin Up” is one of the most needless collections of electronic noise ever put onto record. The power tools that populate the unmusical undercarriage of the beat are neither rhythmic nor melodic and offer no artistic merit that I can discern.
Rarely in this first half does it sound like M.I.A. actually wants anyone to listen to this album. The usually energetic or at least interesting rapper-singer spends most of these songs in either a high- or low-pitched state of malaise. If M.I.A. wanted to make an album to justify retiring from the music business, this would be what it would sound like. Maybe that’s exactly what’s going on here.
Yet somehow, about halfway through, the album takes a turn from bleak horror for the ears to a surprisingly powerful collection of songs.
“It Takes a Muscle” is relatively laid back and reveals the album’s first real melody. The following “It Iz What It Iz” is similarly pleasant, though the chaos of the preceding tracks makes these two seem boring when on their own or on a similarly warm collection of tracks they might stand out in a better way. To that effect, even the following “Born Free,” for which an all-too controversial video was released earlier this year, builds and explodes, but unlike the manic nonsense of the album’s early songs, it’s a punkish anthem of power, with M.I.A. doing her best Karen O impression over a blazing beat.
“Tell Me Why” and “Space,” though still finding M.I.A.’s voice buried or drowned under an ocean of reverb and computerization, connect and hold place among the best songs on the rapper’s celebrated first albums. Perhaps most poignant of all, “Caps Lock” finds M.I.A. in a forlorn state of contemplation, her anger spent and her hands left empty. Listening to the album from point A to point B reveals a journey of madness and poor choices, and “Caps Lock” then sounds like the end of the party, when everyone who cared is gone and all that remains is a lonely soul making music only for herself.
Still, this more tragic view of the album reveals its potential but underlines its main issues; it’s not a cohesive piece of music, certainly, with a split-brain mentality that leaves half of the record coming off like absolute garbage while the remaining listenable tracks feel unfulfilled. Had M.I.A. released a few EPs containing the worthwhile fruits of a reported three years of labor, she could have remained not only relevant but tangibly exciting, a talent about whom we could all speak volumes and thanks to whom we could find hope for the globalization of pop music.
As it is, Maya, while featuring the most personal of all her album titles, is just under half of a decent release that’s attached to an absolute monstrosity, which makes one wonder how M.I.A. views herself as an artist and as a person.
Rating: 45%