Christgau on M.I.A., taking off from ILM thread

I don't know about that...

(I'm gonna ignore your second posts because those are SEPARATE MEDIUMS whereas writing is writing. duh)

x-post

double xpost

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okay, I'm letting this go now....

but because M.I.A.'s documentable experience connects her to world poverty in a way few Western whites can grasp.

http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0509,christgau2,61608,22.html

Don, did you read the Reynolds' piece? In that context I think that line makes a lot more sense.

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The article takes a sort of interesting "third way" approach--focusing on the authenticity/legitimacy of her political position instead of her persona, and he does actually address the album itself, albeit in a not particularly interesting way.

Still, I'm not entirely happy we're STILL focusing on the goddamned political content of the album, nor am I entirely convinced that an engagement with Sri Lankan history is necessary to fully experience Arular. Maybe this is the over-educated politics major in me talking, but it's not that hard to grasp the outlines of the conflict, and that's all that's really necessary to know what's going on, since MIA's project is broader than that one situation. But a response to Reynolds' piece was highly necessary, so yay.

I'm also not entirely convinced of the accuracy of his interpretation, but we can leave that for later.

And, agreed that the quotes are very, very useful if we want to continue this discussion. Sins of the father etc.

This quote is certainly interesting in light of suggestions that she's an uncritical supporter of the Tigers, or even that the album is a "tribute" to her dad.

OK, so lemme change that to "in 5 years, MIA will be saying..."

Prince comparison kinda interesting here.

I didn't say that she was an "uncritical" supporter - just a supporter. It's just that in the interviews I've read she talks a lot about the injustices perpetrated by the Sinhalese govt in very vivid terms, but I haven't heard her criticize the Tigers at all, apart from a very vague suggestion that her dad is "insane" - which lots of kids say about their dads, even if they don't blow people up.

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ha! OTM!

I like her revolutionary schtick much better than the above-mentioned artists, because it's not central, it's reasonably representative, and it's mainly sane.

Here's the full sentence:

"But I also advise them to avoid the cheaper tack taken in last week's Voice by Simon Reynolds: 'Don't let M.I.A.'s brown skin throw you off: She's got no more real connection with the favela funksters than Prince Harry.' Not just because brown skin is always real, but because M.I.A.'s documentable experience connects her to world poverty in a way few Western whites can grasp."

He's not saying most Western whites can't grasp a connection (between poverty and _______, he's saying Western whites don't have a connection to world poverty in any meaningful way. That sentence doesn't strike me as being very controversial or deplorable.

http://www.niralimagazine.com/features/0410_mia.html

I don't read it that way. He doesn't say it that way. He says that Western whites cannot grasp her connection to poverty, not that we can't grasp the depth of the poverty itself.

This has been said by more than one person, and I don't understand why. Discussing the war needs no justification, nor does discussing the relationship between politics and music. No reason to restrict ourselves to what contributes to a full experience of Arular. That thread was one of the great events in ILX history, and I hope we hear more from those new posters, cicatrix especially.

x-post obviously

Outsiders commented or raved or asked questions or noodged the discussion back toward music or imposed their own left or neocon agendas.

So very very true.

That thread was one of the great events in ILX history, and I hope we hear more from those new posters, cicatrix especially.

Quite so. I've been talking with one of them off-board a bit -- thoughtful person! Currently on vacation, I gather.

Also, if I wanted to hear music nerds discussing politics, I would hang myself and go to hell, because that would probably be my eternal punishment. The thread was interesting, but less so than, you know, a good thorough article on the conflict would have been. And what it's led people to then assume about MIA herself and, worse, the music, has been just really sad. There's a lot more going on there than just the Tigers.

He's saying neither of the things that Don proffers. He is saying that few Western whites can grasp the nature of a connection to world poverty, not the fact of MIA's connection to same, because they have no such connection themselves. This is made clear, if there is a question, by the context - the use of "connection" in the assertion he responds to.

Agreed to a point, and the other thread was interesting (to a point - until my eyes glazed over), but high profile red herrings should be called out, especially if they might prevent those who haven't heard the record from dismissing it before they even get to hear it. Alternately, there's nothing wrong with steering the discussion back to the text itself - especially if it is being maligned incorrectly.

(but seriously, I have never seen anything in the mainstream US media about Sri Lanka, certainly not since 9/11).

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Eppy, I think you are being unfair in this regard -- I did not lack complete knowledge of what was happening in Sri Lanka, but neither did I have any more than a bare outline. If I may draw a comparison, it is a bit like knowing about the generalities of the Northern Ireland situation but not the specifics. This should not be surprising that most people I general would only know of those generalities, regardless of how informed one considers oneself or not.

And here's an interview from 1986.

Doesn't take that much googlin'...

xpost?

Also, don't call me Shirley!

Would it be insulting to say that if you lack a basic knowledge about world events, you should maybe spend a little less time arguing about the Arcade Fire? It would be, wouldn't it. So never mind.

Well, this is now an x-post, but I think your post just now, Eppy, muddies the waters rather than clears them. However I must get back to some actual work here...

otherwise, Alex and Ned OTFM.

And I have a better than basic knowledge of world events, dickhead (I also have only the barest idea who Arcade Fire are.) The stuff that was being discussed on that M.I.A. thread was a little bit beyond what was going to be gleaned from two topical Newsweek articles in two decades.

I'm not knocking the thread--the thread was kind of interesting, but ultimately it's reflective of a certain laziness on the park of music critics when it comes to politics. That debate was ALWAYS out there, waiting to be engaged in. It's not a fucking white-label; it's a long-running civil war affecting the lives of thousands of people.

Just don't use your own ignorance to justify trying to attach the politics to the music. The music and the politics have very, very, very little to do with each other.

*head explodes*

If I had my way, everyone would have to take the foreign service exam before posting to ILM.

I hate googlefests, and I'm at work, so you'll forgive me for not supplying you with an encyclopedic list of articles in the mainsteam media about Sri Lanka. Doesn't two disprove the "none" above? Yup, it does. You could also go to one of those "library" things I've heard about.

No SHIT, Sherlock. I called this a game of oneupsmanship and you're rapidly proving that you are all too interested in playing it.

Haha amusingly enough I have these arguments with my best friend (who has only a passing knowledge of pop music and a pretty vast knowledge of world events) all the time.

"Alex: about watching the BBC and being fairly up-to-date on all sortsa world happenings in places that we're not currently fighting wars, ya know? But hey, what do I know?"

Haha oh this is a joke right?

OK, you guys got me. When everyone writes their reviews, if you haven't already, make sure they're entirely about the Sri Lankan civil war so you can open more minds, OK?

The second part does not have to imply the first. At ALL.

Ethnic enmity in the former Ceylon will ring a bell with fans of colonialism in Rwanda or Ireland, where divide-and-conquer also set the stage for civil war.

that 'fans' is cute of course, but it might be a cause for alarm when these two examples are meant to somehow give us a handle on sri lanka. ireland is like rwanda how?

Was that a Freudian slip?

All music deserves the privilege of being discussed in musical terms. The problem is that most people can't discuss music in musical terms, so the discussion centers around musicological apsects rather than technical aspects.

xxxxpost - whats so deplorable about this?

oh absolutely, Dan. And sometimes it annoys me when music is discussed in anything but musical terms (happens a lot on ILM). But I don't think it's right to say that we should only limit responses. If someone wants to explore the political in music, I think that's just as valid as any other approach. That's all I'm saying.

Civil wars in the post-colonial periods were largely fought along lines of division that had been exploited or even manufactured by the colonial powers. Possibly less clear cut in the case of Ireland (unionists in the north allying themselves with the UK) than in Rwanda (Tutsis enforcing German and later Belgian rule), but still essentially valid.

A Prince album? OK, I admit I don't know what it is. Feel free to substitute the appropriate term meaning "discussion of technical musical aspects".

this bit sells the music pretty well, for me at least. but yeah there hasn't been much in the way of good stuff written about that aspect

Yes, but it didn't take long for Joe Strummer to back away from his expressions of support (however artistic) for the Red Brigades and the Baader-Meinhoff gang. Today, I read "Tommy Gun" and "Spanish Bombs" as anti-terrorist songs: satirical and mournful, respectively.

The last couple Clash albums drew attention to the Sandanistas and the FMLN, but I wouldn't compare either of those with the LTTE. I got an email recently from the Socialist Equality Party of Sri Lanka. Does M.I.A. namecheck them?

xxxxpost - whats so deplorable about this?

It's unnecessary hyperbole.

right. i wasn't directing my comments at xgau.

In any case its absolutely got a mixed relation to politix, and reynolds doesn't argue otherwise. Rather, he makes the true point that

"Sourced in the insubordinate energy of street soljas across the globe, her music vaguely evokes third-world-versus-first- world struggle, but the actual independence movement M.I.A.'s dad was involved in (Tamil Tigers versus the Sinhalese majority government of Sri Lanka) doesn't fit that model. Like Rwanda, it's an ethnic war within a third-world nation."

This isn't to deny the Tamil cause but rather to notice that the official Lanka govt. hardly bears the same relation to the u.s. as does, say, Israel.

:-) I like this! It reminds me of what I was trying to teach back in the mid-nineties in writing classes about the possibility of rapid open-end debate instead of isolated articles or exchanges solely in a letters column. There are many examples of what Geeta speaks about happening, of course, but it's definitely nice to see this kind of interweaving in action. Indeed, more, not less!

i'm so sick of music journalists thinking they are private investigators, patting themselves on the back for "un-credding" artists. i don't care whether M.I.A. is "for real" or not. she creates great music, and transcribes the moodern world through her eyes, dropping in pop-culture references and an approximation for the confusion and despair of our times.

because asthma and flu = malaria and plague?
because going to bed hungry = death of malnutrition?
because the Southside Crips = the Janjaweed?

yes.

Possibly less clear cut in the case of Ireland (unionists in the north allying themselves with the UK) than in Rwanda (Tutsis enforcing German and later Belgian rule)

yes (although the unionists didn't 'ally themselves' with the uk -- they were uk subjects, unlike participants in colonial wars)

but still essentially valid.

no. xgau does himself no favours by lumping in all conflicts related to the collapse of empires (leaving aside whether ireland was a colony or not, which it wasn't in the rwanda sense). the british ruling class could hardly be said to have 'encouraged' the unionist ultras, given that the liberal party wanted shot of ireland altogether... here isn't a forum for this discussion, but xgau was no way 'essentially valid'.

Obviously this is partly what got up Reynold's nose and is what is annoying people upthread about that Xgau quote.

There's an interesting parallel with this in Anthropology about whether Captain Cook was seen as a god by the pacific islanders and ritually killed (Sahlins) or whether he was killed quite rationally because he was exploiting them (Obeyesekere). This fite then turned into one about the righs of people to speak for others ie that the American Sahlins was less legitimate than the Sri Lankan Obeyesekere because Obeyesekere had also been on the wrong end of colonialism, even though he had no more connection with the people of Hawaii than Sahlins.

Possibly off-topic, but interesting, I think.

At my local Thai restaurant 'galang' is the name of ginger.

I suspect she's laughing at all this over-intellectualising bullshit.

It's like the emperor's new clothes but with 'exotic' skin.

Only got the album this week, saw her last night and heard pft on the train for the first time this morning, so don't get me wrong. I'm currently in the first flush of THIS IS GREAT excitement.

Galangal is thai ginger, but you can eat the skin. It's great too.

I can't help thinking that this

www.tomwolfe.com/RadicalChic.html

is relevant somehow, but I can't for the life of me remember what it says

It won't before long before people start saying that the only reason she's getting attacked so vociferously is because she's a woman, and that the Clash didn't take this much shit because they were white males. See also Courtney Love, Chrissy Hynde, Liz Phair, et al. And I imagine it won't be long be long before some butthole politician turns this into a Sister Souljah moment.

x-post-- M.I.A.'s experience likely gives her more valid and perhaps more meaningful insight to world poverty, but that's not what bothers me. It's the way that Xgau dismisses the empathy of The Man Western whites so casually.

Also I think reading that Xgau quote out of the context of Reynolds piece (which basically dismisses the idea that M.I.A. even HAS dark skin) is the only way you could come to that conclusion.

So last week. ;)

Alex homes in on what's wrong with Reynolds comments (but yeah since this appropriation business is clearly not done I'll gladly receive Reynolds copy of Metal Box.)

-- gabbneb

again, notice it's not a poor person doing the one-upmanship.

I realize that that Xgau is directing that line about honkies (honkeys?) reactively towards Reynolds, but I still don't think it fits.

It definitely seems like this is the direction.

You're right about this not being the forum for a discussion of the political history of Ireland / Northern Ireland (and if it were, I'd still be loath to become involved in one), but the fact remains that the conflict in Northern Ireland is largely rooted in the region's history of a ruling power having used one group to control another.

also, Simon follows up Christgau's piece here: http://blissout.blogspot.com/

Unbelievably OTM. That bit in his latest blog post where he just kinda yells "hey, don't forget ST MARTIN'S!" is just bizarre to the point of psychosis.

This is also very telling.

"you're totally right though that MIA is of the same "class" as the bloggers and journos who celebrate street music... the difference is she's made a record based on those interests, whereas i, for one, haven't... that's a big step, there are loads of ways you can express enthusiasm for these street musics (writing about them, starting labels, promoting events) without actually making a record based on those styles"

IE, he basically comes out and says "musicians should be held to these standards, because they've crossed a line, critics like me are exempt".

Gosh. Well, call me obvious but this is both news to me and actually pretty damned interesting in light of everything else! Discourse really is a mess.

So you shouldn't enjoy the music without thinking about the politics but the politics are not very interesting because the music isn't good? Or if the politics were less objectionable we could enjoy the music in ignorance and if the music were more urgent we could forget all about the politics? Can anyone clarify what they think he means in this paragraph?

But in my mind I keep going back to the question: why his interest in debunking M.I.A? Yeah, just a thought experiment, playing argumentative ping pong with the blogosphere/X-gau, and all of that. And yet she touches a nerve and I can’t shake the feeling that in the end this isn’t about baile funk , politics, etc. It’s about grime, and this perception that M.I.A. will ruin/pervert the changes of grime in the U.S. (still believing in the eternal myth of a new Brit-invasion, have to keep up da dialectic, it’s the way of History.) Maybe next to some possessive idea of “there can be only London sound!” (Reynolds seems intimidated/irritated by the idea that M.I.A. is…let’s say meta-London and not from this or that particular street/hood. This localization-uber-alles all sounds a bit tribal to me. But then again I’m all about pan-European electro-house bobbins flows. ;)

Yeah, but 'revolution' as a word is SO co-opted it's not even funny! Which I know you know and all but still, it's weird to see it used.

No -- we fault them for cheaply using Maoist imagery (indeed, Maoist name). As person upthread said, it is just radical chic in the worst sense. A 'revolutionary vibe' is plain stupid if the 'revolutions' being referred to are as disastrous and bloody as the Chinese Cultural Revolution. It's lame to draw on this counter-cultural capital if you have no actual political ideas.

"gang of four" wz
i. a topical ref which to be "got" required you be "aware of world affairs" (w.subsequent inner-circle levels of "getting"), viz
ii. a self-mocking JOKE (since the actual real Go4—mme mao etc—were somewhat unpopular w.EVERYONE EVERYWHERE at this point, left or right: it functioned more as an um "appropriation" of the scorn* and ignorance of some imagined not-too-quick-abt-marxism opponent ), plus finally
iii. A GREAT NAME as it memorably and exactly (and pseudo-objectively) described WHAT they were, plus sly pun included if you want it (cf 50¢ = "represents change" haha)

they weren't even pretend maoists, were they? more like wannabe situationists (sits being libertarian, anti-party and thus ferociously anti-mao obv)

*"gang of four" = a highly compressed and expressive criminal charge in its original chinese usage

ts: "we are interested in a world outside ourselves, perhaps a bit naively" vs "my suit is white and black foax are all komikal"

i am being unfair because at 25 years' distance the 'problem' is the "bands/film directors were so political back then" meme, which i find a bit grinding when the emphasis is "they were political" instead of "this is what they were about". it's a matter of emphasis in current discourse rather than a prob with the bands "as such". obviously my not knowing all that much about G04 other than 'they were quite left-wing' is product of this problem!

ooh no-one's mentioned LUKE HAINES yet.