.What a Godawful New M.I.A. Song: “XXXO”

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It’s like she’s trying to have it both ways; i.e. epic political-allegory video with “shocking” visuals and a metaphor thought up by a junior high student and, also, this. Wasn’t it enough that she disregards the divide between genres? Does she also have to go out of her way to blatantly disregard the divide between underground and mainstream sensibilities? Because this shit is a cruddy autotuned Eurodance jack, and I have now never looked forward to an album less. “Born Free” was contrived but no one noticed it outside of the let’s-all-write-about-it video and hey! Wow! A Suicide sample! This, I hope, pulls the curtain back and shows that M.I.A. is now just playing the game like everyone else instead of making challenging, incredible, fucking vital music like the wonderful M.I.A. of old. Meaning the M.I.A. of six years ago. Could it really be all over? Is six years all it takes to drain someone of all their creativity? And they start singing about iPhones?

2 COMMENTS

  1. Totally agree with the article. Unfortunately the national youth radio network in Australia (triple j) doesn’t agree and are playing it. I thought I had accidentally tuned in to a commercial network- sounds like a poor mimic of a Brittany Spears song.

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