Proved It
Do you remember when you listened to OK Computer for the first time? Perhaps you already owned The Bends, your expectations for the next full length were high, and then you were shocked to hear a record that actually expanded upon an already brilliant album. All of the sudden, the idea of where music might be going became an engaging question again.
Yes. Kala was released today.
And no. I’m not comparing M.I.A. to Radiohead; it’s just that my Kala experience echoes OK. That is, despite some comparisons floating about on the interweb, Kala is incomparable. Sure, M.I.A. drops New Order, the Clash, Jonathan Richman, and others, and she covers “Jimmy” from the 1983 Bollywood film, Disco Dancer. Nevertheless, this album is not a pastiche or mash-up in Jameson’s sense of empty, vapid postmodernism. There’s nothing neutral or apathetic or apolitical or complicit about Kala. M.I.A. takes up everything at her disposal and throws it in your face.
She begins the record with a shift from first to third person. (She’s already meta-aware, and I’ll let her get away with this Ricky Henderson move.) The lyric, “I’m bored of banana,” which is a reference to the first “skit” on Arular, is followed by, “M.I.A. coming back with power power.” From here forward, Kala simultaneously is and is not the M.I.A. of the previous record. Yes, these songs are just as listenable and danceable as the ones on Arular, but M.I.A. also issues a redress for the knocks she’s received since 2005. (None of which, in my opinion, were legit. All of which should also be silenced after Kala.) She’s no one-hitter. And borrowing from Richman, in “Bamboo Banga” she hails the audience by radio, performing a call-and-response with herself as chorus (with the occasional dog bark and car engine). With “Bird Flu” and “Mango Pickle Down River” that chorus goes kiddie, including The Wilcannia Mob on “Pickle Down.” This move could have seriously botched the entire record; however, you don’t get any “We Are the World” antics here. M.I.A. speaks only for herself and without all of the happy multiculturalism. More importantly, she doesn’t need anyone else to speak for her. Even with the presence of guests like Wilcannia on this record, together with lyrical snippets from bands like The Pixies, there’s little doubt whose album this is. And after several listens, I’m glad to know that Timbaland’s but a bonus track.
After “Pickle Down,” you get a five-song string of bold, sonic compositions. In all of their club-friendliness, these songs also demand a close listen. M.I.A’s voice (and she does some singing this time around) is more mature and foregrounded than in Arular, particularly in “Paper Planes.” Meanwhile, the beats are choppier and punchier, less fluid and integrated. As with the aesthetic of M.I.A.’s website, which doesn’t abide by Web 2.0 “smoothness” and minimalism, songs like “20 Dollar” (there’s inflation since Arular’s “10 Dollar”), “XR2″ and “World Town” evoke 1980s low-tech video gaming. Plenty of sound bursts here. Every layer seems slapped together, layered rather than mixed, leaning more toward breakbeat than any other electronic genre. Consequently, there is certainly a D.I.Y. feel to the album. It’s not polished. It’s as visceral as it is smart.
And now we can start wondering where music is going again.
Here’s the video for “Jimmy”:
And for “Bird Flu”:
And for “Boyz” (give it ten seconds):
