M.I.A. Maya (Review)

/\/\/\Y/\
(Interscope/N.E.E.T., 2010)

/\/\/\Y/\, henceforth Maya (because… well, I’m just not doing that), is the follow up to the widely successful Kala and the relative megahit ‘Paper Planes’. To cut to the chase it’s not creatively bankrupt, but it is to say the least creatively confused. I’m going to try and avoid discussion of M.I.A.’s recent public shenanigans, that infamous New York Times interview, and her apparently childish response to it, as there’s enough discussion and noise about celebrity in the world and I want little to do with it.

Maya begins with ‘The Message’, a brief outburst of paranoia over the “head bone” being “connected to iPhone connected to the internet connected to the Google connected to the government“, and it’s as grating as that last sentence. It’s not the underlying sentiment that’s a problem; I read something in one of the broadsheets the other weekend that pointed out, obviously but notably, that Facebook holds more private information than most governments, which frankly is something we should all be shitting ourselves about, though the idea presented in this way eradicates the possibility of any serious discourse and instead paves the way for much self-indulgent posturing.

‘Steppin’ Up’ incorporates dubstep, noise, and apparently chainsaws and whatnot, but ends up feeling flat and devoid of any of the charm, hooks, or sense of the transnational that characterized Kala. Along with ‘Teqkilla’ it chugs, and bleeps, and splutters, and wants to have a sense of danger and radical confrontation but ends up a half-baked headache. ‘XXXO’, a discernible pop song, works better. It’s not the best pop song she’s written, but it’s better than, say, the new Lady GaGa single. There’s something bordering on melancholic in a couple of the hooks and offers some heart through the panic, even if it is plagued with the awful lyric “I can be the actress, you be Tarantino”, which at least to me sounds absolutely nightmarish. It’s not the only half-decent moment on the album, but when you remember how fantastic and cohesive Kala was you might be tempted to check you bought the right record.

If you can be convinced there’s a genuine relevance or political depth, and that the noisier sounds are confrontational rather than an industrial accident, then it might work for you. A lot of stuff gets thrown around but most of it isn’t that special after you get past the surprise of its overall cacophony, and it almost seems as though it’s there to mask the lack of inspired material. Maybe you can read it as the mess of sounds of the album mirroring the mass of interconnected information on the internet and beyond. That’s fine. Doesn’t make the album any better. It’s easy and tempting to be carried along with the suggestions the record makes, particularly if you think M.I.A. was one of the more progressive and interesting pop artists of the last decade, but if nothing else, it’s inspired me to write my name as J/\/\/\£5. That’s the depth we’re talking about and therein lies the problem with Maya.

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