Comments

GIVERS are really great live! They reminded me of DPz before they came on next in their ATL show
Kozelek's no spring chicken!
These comments are disappointing, as usual. In defense of the cover art: 1. There is a new (ish) design aesthetic heralded as "the new ugly." It is a reaction to the hegemony of post-Swiss school minimalist design that has become so popular (and boring) these days. In a sense, it is an anti-generic statement. 2. The album cover is actual an animated GIF on her site and elsewhere, but of course, as a physical artifact, the album art is a static image. Isn't the point that people don't own albums anymore? It's digital. This album art is quintessentially a digital product as you really get it as an online expierence versus a physical one. Music is no longer static, even track listings are meaningless as its sequence is disrupted by pirate copies and random shuffles, etc.
The is a dumb, repetitive pop song with really slick glossy production. Sound familiar? The key to the song is the chorus. After the success of Paper Planes and Kala in general, MIA is expected to maintain artistic credibility, still, radio success. "You want me be somebody who I'm really not."--a pop ingenue. The songs dumb on purpose. It seems, like most radio music, that this track could be made by anyone but it is idiosyncratically MIA. It's ironic, meta, whatever.
They sure did push the release of the album way up there! But honestly I like 'gum's premature evaluations way better than the reviews on other sites, except, maybe rateyourmusic... My take: Less filler than the first. The aggressive parts are more aggressive. The dreamy songs are dreamier. Less NES, more manipulations of the vocals, more original. Good all around.
Whats up with all these premature evaluations that are not about Crystal Castles, which leaked a week ago? C'mon.