The third installment in this series, in which I count down my list of best albums of the last decade. Coming in with bang at number 8, it’s that feisty firebrand, Ms Maya Arulpragasam and her eminent first album.
#8
M.I.A.
Arular
[2005]
I wrote before about how a mutual appreciation for music formed the basis of one friendship in my life. Another friendship, I could possibly put down to a mutual appreciation for just one song in particular. Okay, well, it was more like two songs, really, but still…
In October 2006, just a couple of months after I moved to Nagasaki, some fellow JET Programme participants and I went on a long weekend road trip organized by our regional representatives. (The trip itself was highly eventful and I could probably write a few hundred words on how great it was, but I’m already on a tangent here and I need to stop going wildly off-topic in these posts.) One of the party members was an American girl named Lizzie, who was based on Fukue, the largest of the Gotō Islands. On the first night of the trip, we bonded over the Tom Tom Club’s ‘Genius of Love’. When it wasn’t available on the karaoke machine in the bar we went to in Shimonoseki that night, we put on that hit that sampled it and sang the original parts over it.
The next day, while staying at a campsite in Akiyoshidai, we cemented that bond with our shared love of this track:
The start of a great friendship indeed. The following year, she was transferred from Fukue to Isahaya, a 30-minute train journey from Nagasaki and many good times were had, including some musical collaboration: memorably, Lizzie provided vocals to the quasi-lead single from my second album and then helped me make a video for it in her apartment. Again, veering off-topic, here – but I got some self-promotion in there, so I’ll let it slide…
But let’s rewind. I was first alerted to M.I.A. – most likely by Pitchfork or some other, hipster-y hype-y website – in early 2005. Arular had just been released, I believe, and there was a huge buzz surrounding her (in those hipster-y hype-y circles, at least). Actually, there had been a bit of buzz for a while about her, with her receiving a deal of attention for her Piracy Funds Terrorism mixtape. Indeed, ‘Galang’ had already been around for a while. As had ‘Sunshowers’:
Semi-digression: ‘Sunshowers’ was the first song Lizzie or I found on karaoke systems in Japan. She was in Fukuoka and discovered it there, then sent me a picture taken with her phone of some of the lyrics on the screen. I don’t think ‘Galang’ or any other Arular tracks ever showed up any karaoke places I ever went to. The next to appear wasn’t until the autumn of 2007, when ‘Jimmy’ was released as the first single (in Japan anyway) from her second album, Kala. ‘Jimmy’ was actually really successful over there – it went to number 5 or 4 in the singles chart. ‘Paper Planes’ inevitably got on to the karaoke machines too, but it didn’t trouble the charts as much there.
But yes: 2005; M.I.A; first album buzz. I took the bait and downloaded (tut tut) the album, ripped from the US CD release. I loved it – and so I went out and bought the (UK) CD. And here’s the tricky part: they had slightly different tracklists. Now, the differences were slight enough, I suppose (and would later provide a running joke between Lizzie and me) – but this kind of thing kind of annoys me. I don’t know exactly why. I think it’s something to do with the idea that a studio album should have a kind of fixed, definitive place in an artist’s canon. Like, if the studio wants to release a deluxe version with bonus tracks on the end, whatever – not really a fan of the practice, but at least it leaves the original, artist-intended sequence intact, allowing the album to be properly appreciated/judged as a singular piece of work. (Though inevitably, there are those for whom the bonus track is just part of the album. I remember scolding another friend for saying he really liked “the last song” on Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Show Your Bones, when he was actually talking about the bonus track, ‘Deja Vu’. Not that the bonus track is terrible or anything, but the real last song, ‘Turn Into’, is such a brilliant album closer. It ties the whole thing up beautifully.)
So the existence of the differing tracklists poses a little bit of trouble. Well, maybe not. It seems like the tracklist of the UK release – which came out a month or so after the US one – has won out in the end. Previous talk of trouble with samples would suggest that the absence of ‘URAQT’ on the earlier US release was purely a legal thing. But that still doesn’t explain the two other differences: the replacement of one of the skits with another and the movement of ‘Sunshowers’ from just before ‘Galang’ at the end to track four. This change ticked me off. On one hand, it just seemed so arbitrary. On the other, more cynical hand, it felt like the studio just didn’t want both singles so late in the album and pulled one of them up near the front. Who knows. Perhaps that was the way M.I.A. herself always wanted it. But the thing is, it doesn’t work as well. The original tracklist just flowed better. Also, ‘URAQT’ isn’t very good. It kind of lets the album down.
Wow, two big paragraphs bitching about minor change to the running order! Go petty me! Okay, I’m over it at this stage. Let’s get on with the album itself.
The album itself fucking kicks ass. At the time, I’d heard nothing like it. Still, in fact, I haven’t really heard anything like it. Sure, I’ve heard things which clearly inspired Arular, but the particular combination/clash of sounds, themes and attitudes on display here remain quite unique. And quite brilliant. Like XTRMNTR, this album took me out of my usual, alternative rock comfort zone and challenged me. And I loved it. A big part of my love for Arular was the way you could dance to it. I’d always loved dancing – not that I was a particularly good dancer at all: my technique, inspired by the rock and pop music I would find myself dancing to, would mostly involve jumping up and down, sometimes shifting weight from one foot to the other. But you just couldn’t do that with this album. These songs just had grooves that commanded you to sway and swagger. Take ‘Bingo’, possibly my favourite track on the album. It has such a swing. You just have to bend your knees, move your hips and roll your shoulders. It would actually be nigh on impossible to pogo this song:
That playful bounce is present throughout most of the songs – though perhaps not quite as lilting as on that track. First “proper” song, ‘Pull Up The People’ is a bit more tense and choppy, though still has a rallying call-to-arms feel. But it’s not nearly as aggressive or as in your face as track three (on both tracklists): ‘Bucky Done Gun’. This song, later released as the third single of the album, is a standout and a half. Definitely the most brazen song on the album, it manages to be bold without being abrasive. Some of the criticism of M.I.A.’s third album, Maya, seemed to centre on it being sonically harsh. Perhaps these critics felt she crossed a line on that album she managed to walk with a song like ‘Bucky’. When I eventually saw M.I.A. for the first time in Dublin last year – having been unable to see her when she toured Kala in Japan (even though a few friends I’d introduced to her got to go and ended up partying with her after the show. Grr.) – it was when she dropped ‘Bucky Done Gun’, a few songs into the set, that it all kicked off big style. It’s just a monster of a tune.
The other songs all fall between the bounce of ‘Bingo’ and the brass of ‘Bucky’. Closer to the former you’ve got songs like ‘Amazon’ and the aforementioned ‘Sunshowers’. On the more audacious side there are ‘Fire, Fire’ and ’10 Dollar’. But the tone does not vary erratically – and the “voice” is consistent throughout. And, like I said, you can dance to it all.
Both versions come to a close the ‘Galang’, which we already know is a stomper of a song, capable of forging friendships between people from different continents – living in a third continent. And then there’s ‘M.I.A.’ – the “hidden” or “secret” track. Where do I stand on those? In general, I don’t really see the point. I could kind of understand if everyone was still listening to vinyl records and there would be more of an actual element of surprise. But, with digital formats, most players will clearly reveal that there’s something added on the end of the last track. Although, in this case, because ‘M.I.A.’ is not preceded by a huge silent gap, people could potentially look at the timecodes and think, “Oh wow, a seven-minute version of ‘Galang’ – deadly!” I mean, if the track is an integral part of the album, why not give it its own track? If it’s not… why not give it its own track???
Actually, I think ‘M.I.A.’ is a good way to end the album. It’s sparse and simple, but – very directly – sums up Arulpragasam and what she’s about. Or at least, what she was claiming to be about back then. Only problem is: it’s not that danceable! And I somehow doubt it could inspire as many friendships as ‘Galang’ can. You never know, though!
