Galang was the first M.I.A. song I heard- I heard it on TV, M.I.A. performing it at a festival. The TV appearance was really good- dramatic and fiery and full of it. The recorded version (off her first album Arular) is pretty good too. You can, if it catches you in the wrong mood, think 'this is just chanting while a drum machine on a laptop and a computer game play at the same time'. But that would be missing the point. This is the sound of new (back then), coming right at you.
Galang came out in 2005 which makes this ten years old. Ten years. Where does the time go? etc. M.I.A. followed it up a couple of years later with Paper Planes which is as good as anything anyone has done in the last decade.
Galang
1 comment:
Have to say I agree SA, Galang is absolutely subversive, joyously, politically subversive.
Paper Planes takes Galang's overt political imagery and translates it to the personal/social/societal tale of immigrant trying to get by with all the bravado that comes with it.
But M.I.A. is an equal opportunity commentator. Bad Girls from 2012 takes that venom to world of Arab youth with no clue about noblesse oblige.
And hey, she gave the finger to millions of Super Bowls fans on live television during Madonna's half time performance and stole all her limelight. Good on her.
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