M.I.A. Releases "/\/\ /\ Y /\": Brushes Aside the Mainstream Once More

Today M.I.A. released her anticipated follow up album to 2007's Kala which featured the huge hit "Paper Planes". The new album is titled /\/\ /\ Y /\ (or called "Maya" by others for simplicity) and is not a release filled with pop bangers like the breakout "Paper Planes" eventually grew into long after the release of her last album. Maya has a couple moments of fluid pop music, but largely is a very experimental electronic sound that stands pretty far from being "radio friendly".

My natural instinct would be to slam M.I.A. for flopping as a pop artist with this album that rarely "pops", but M.I.A. has hardly ever made music with the intent on appealing to an MTV audience. Much of her previous music was very experimental as well (e.g. the "world" meets electronic genre clash of Kala) and it was only when movies/radio/tv ran away with "Paper Planes" which was only the third single from Kala and then sampled on the popular "Swagga Like Us" song by T.I./Kanye/Jay-Z/Lil Wayne that M.I.A. was blown out of perspective and made M.I.A. out to be something she isn't. To be honest I have never really been a fan of the more strange experimental songs by M.I.A. that make up much of her albums, but so far I've seen Maya being slammed by some for not being as catchy as it should be, like they've only heard no more than four M.I.A. songs before this album.

Maya pumps out a couple strong pop songs in "XXXO" (which already has a remix with Jay-Z) and "Tell Me Why", which is honestly just about all that I could have expected from a M.I.A. album. She is known to be very opinionated and politically charged and that definitely holds a presence on this album, but I'm going to leave this article just as a discussion of her music and avoid delving into that topic.

On an interesting note, even Diplo, a producer that has worked with M.I.A. throughout her career and shows up to produce two tracks for Maya, dismissed M.I.A.'s latest effort, tweeting "Cuz rest of [the] album is a turd," in response to a fan who asked "why, at the end of the track "Tell Me Why" "does it sound like a toilet just flushed ...?".

If M.I.A. is trying to make Top 40 music, then her new music would be as lost as her album cover, but to be honest I think she's fine just being herself and doing her own thing. Check out "XXXO" and "Tell Me Why" below for what were my favorite two songs off the album:


M.I.A.- "Tell Me Why"