Holy mother of...
So the hotly anticipated M.I.A. album leaked yesterday. I wasn't planning on writing anything about this, but I guess I have to now because it's incredible. Really, I was just totally blindsided by how good this is. I suppose a quick confession is in order before we move on. As much as I like Dizzee Rascal, his first album, aside from "I Luv U", just didn't live up to what was written about him. Not that it wasn't a great album, but it didn't quite capture the sheer level of insanity that everyone had hinted at. This album, on the other hand, is everything that I thought
Boy In Da Corner was going to be and more. Probably the most immediately engrossing thing I've heard in years. "Pull Up The People" is pure digital age witchcraft. That dominant wobbly bass line makes this sound slightly unbalanced and claustrophobic, but it's more fun than frightening...like
Pre-millenium Tension gone pop! "Bucky Done Gone", which might be the best song on the album, is an unmitigated aural assault with its demented faux horns and nonstop kitchen sink clamoring. Absolutely love the cut-up stuttered vocal bit. When I try to visualize this song it's all flailing arms, twirling bodies, and herky-jerky convulsive madness. "Fire Fire" unveils the heavy artillery and is clearly just an excuse to blow those dull thud bass bombs at will. Also a brief lyrical reference to Timbaland and Missy, who are obvious influences (among a vast host of others I'm sure). The intensity withers only slightly with "Amazon", which is evocative of jungles and third world marketplaces and whatnot. It's certainly the shiniest track up to this point, and is simultaneously exotic and technologically familiar and modern. I like it quite a bit. "Bingo" has a deliberate, straightforward sense of momentum to it, continually rumbling along, enabling you to just sit back and witness all sorts of zaniness from the side window. It's much in the same vein as "Big Pimpin'", a kind of parade from the perspective of the float, except all the wacky stuff is happening on the outside along the fringes and well, everyone is on drugs. In this case, passing by, we hear streaming airborne synths exploding into mini-showers of blunted chimes and the sound of something halfway between electroshock therapy and a dentist's drill. I love the vocal interplay as well. Moving on, the first few moments of "Hombre" are pretty standard fare for this album, but it soon breaks into this massive communal reach for the stars sing-a-long. I was listening to this on repeat in bed last night (at HIGH volume) and it sent chills up and down my spine whenever it came on. "10 Dollar" begins with a clanky synth intro, straight out of the eighties, kind of reminiscent of "I Want To Dance With Somebody" or probably a whole mix disc's worth of similar songs. Lots of big bass and squelchy 8-bit Nintendo zips. Something I love about this track, and this entire album for that matter, is the emphasis on pacing and moments. The repeated "What can I get for 10 dollar? Anything you want!" part comes in at the perfect moment, just when the barrage of "oh"'s and "hey"'s is just verging on monotony. "Sunshowers" is both pretty and ghetto, precisely constructed and offhandedly tossed together, all at the same time. I like this significantly more than the Diplo mix that was on Piracy Funds Terrorism. And of course the big single from 2004, "Galang", a sort of stumbling, crashing "Bouncin' Back"/"Tipsy" hybrid, is on here. The "purple haze"/"razor blades" thing still sounds kind of nonsensical to me, but this still ranks as first rate ear candy with its bruising, pillar-to-the-face beats. The album closes with the song "M.I.A.", which is also very nice, but I'm running out of things to say, so I'll just leave it at that.
Silly to suggest, I know, seeing that we're only two weeks into 2005, but this is more than likely going to end up as my favorite release this year. If it had been released last year, it may well have been tops then too. Surely this is better than anything I heard the two years before that. Just absolutely stellar. This is
So Addictive level striking, only it keeps up the whole way through! I feel like burning 50 copies and handing them out to my neighbors. Man, I hope this album holds up over time. If this doesn't make it big, there is no justice in this world. RCQS 9
(If you listen to this and you don't like it, just keep it to yourself. I DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT.)
