The Village Voice’s “Pazz & Jop” supplement is out this week. It’s the only annual music survey that counts; tallying votes from 795 critics, it’s a clear statement of the prevailing wisdom in US pop criticism. Online you can check out each critic’s list, and search to see how your favorite grime, electroclash, nerd-hop or screamo fared. So, how about the desis?
Albums
2 – M.I.A., Arular
149 – Kronos Quartet f/ Asha Bhosle [thanks Sajit]
231 – Anoushka Shankar, Rise
Songs
29 – M.I.A, “Galang”
30 (tie) – M.I.A., “Bucky Done Gun”
61 (tie) – M.I.A., “Sunshowers”
313 (tie) – M.I.A., “Bingo”
And, unless you count Devendra Banhart (album: 90; song: 313) as an honorary desi (ahem), thatÂ’s it.
ItÂ’s also interesting to search for desis among the critics. Gauging by name, I found only two: Nikhil Swaminathan of Creative Loafing, the Atlanta weekly, and Joseph Patel of MTV. I donÂ’t know either cat; for all I know Joseph may be Trini or Guyanese. He placed M.I.A. on his list of mainly Black music; Nikhil is an indie-rock cat who didn’t find room for a sista. [UPDATE: Also Geeta Dayal! My bad. Thanks, Neha.] ThereÂ’s a lot to be said about the survey. I could get on my high horse about how the cult of Kanye “Crown of Thorns” West — #1 album, #1 song, and a slurping Christgau essay containing gems like this:
On the evidence, Kanye West is nothing less than the young century’s most gifted popular musician. Everything indicates a decent man who’s canny about putting his decency into artistic practice–the widespread misapprehension that the poll-topping “Gold Digger” is “sexist” is one of many proofs that he’s smarter than his critics.
— how the cult, as I was saying, must cease. We could also analyze the paucity of hip-hop overall, and discuss how much that has to do with the state of the music, and how much with the state of criticism. But those are topics for another place.
For now, itÂ’s enough to note that desis are punching beneath their weight. I wouldnÂ’t call 2005 the strongest year for desi diasporic soundz, but I am surprised that the abundance of young, smart, hip desis with fresh ideas and the gift of gab hasnÂ’t produced more than two recognized critics, at least in the US. Mutineers, what gives?
As for the M.I.A. debates, IÂ’m sure all sides will find ammunition in Ms. Arulpragasam bogarting prime space in a survey that remains primarily (though not overwhelmingly) white, male and indie-oriented. I think sheÂ’s fabulous. But as a cultural signifier, it’s true that at least until her next album, sheÂ’s very much up for grabs.
‘Pon de Replay’ scores above ‘Galang’? Please.
Skimming through the top 100 songs, MIA did really well. It looks like only Kanye got more songs on there, and some of those were with guest vocalists. (I think Gorillaz got 3 too, not sure)…
Galang would have placed higher if it had been the only great song in a mediocre album. I mean, Amazon is not even on there! I think her vote got split every which way.
Is that Zadie Smith in your banner, in the pink headgear? Since when was she desi?
She isn’t.
The Pazz & Jop is always a interesting read. The critical blurbs/snipes features is a carnival of curiosities, the apex of musicgeek circle jerkdom. The Passion of The Kanye: Yaaaaaaawn!
The aggregated Top 10 is terrible! How is Kanye better than MIA? How I say!
There is another contributor to the stats who is desi, a blogger, and just plain fan-ta-bu-lous, Geeta Dayal also has an excellent ballot…what it lacks in MIA it makes up for in Isolee.
You forgot to mention the Kronos Quartet featuring Asha Bhosle at 149 (which along with Rise is nominated for a grammy)
The glass is half full – in fact, it’s seven-eighths full!
As a P&J contributor (my ballot is here), I think you guys are missing what good news M.I.A.’s placement is. She didn’t just make #2 – she came within 4% in points to beating Kanye, the odds-on favorite, a guy with massive exposure and radio play that M.I.A. doesn’t (yet) have. Especially for a debut album, this is nothing short of a coup. Yes, critics are supposed to be paying attention to the quality of an album, not how many copies it sold, but we’re only human: Kanye was everywhere in ’05, both as a musician and a cultural figure, and his high profile in the critics’ poll is to be expected. For M.I.A. to come within 107 points (out of ~2,200) of beating him shows just how strongly critics felt about her.
I know, I’ve got a nerve barging in here and saying this, especially since Arular didn’t make my Top 10. (My short review: I love the album but feel like she’s got an even better one in her, and ’05 was a strong year for music in general. If I had more positions, she probably would’ve been my #11.) But I have been watching this poll for more than a decade and participating for a couple of years, and I just thought you’d appreciate some context. M.I.A. making #2 in a critics’ poll on her first album is like Quentin Tarantino making it to #2 at the box office with Pulp Fiction back in 1994 – yeah, it’d be more impressive to be #1, but holy sh*t! Where did this upstart come from to come within a hair’s breadth of the top spot?
Also, in response to the complaints about “Galang”‘s relatively weak showing: To most critics, “Galang” was a 2004 single, and it made the Top 10 of the 2004 P&J poll (check it here – again, an amazing showing for a debut artist who at the time had no album out. The fact that “Galang” made the P&J poll for a second year shows (a) that some people caught on to M.I.A. late; and (b) how much people loved that single in general to keep voting for it. The fact is, the only actual “single” worked to radio from Arular during ’05 was “Sunshowers,” and while that’s a great song, it isn’t the cross-cultural juggernaut that “Galang” was, and so I understand why that and all of her songs made a weak showing in the poll. Also, Interscope is just now working “Bucky Done Gun” to MTV and radio as a single, nearly a year after the album’s U.S. release. So the project of bringing M.I.A. to the masses has been a multiyear project. Don’t be surprised if she makes the ’06 poll with another song or two from the same album!
As a lurking Mutineer and P&J voter (M.I.A. #1, Anoushka #6, Kronos/Asha in my non-P&J Top 20), I have to admit that the biggest influence India had on my ballot this year was the fact that while in Bombay for a month last year, I couldn’t escape that Pussycat Dolls song which, under normal circumstances, I would not have even heard.
thanks for delurking/chiming in, P&J voters!
christopher, i agree with you that within the parameters of the P&J, MIA’s superstrong second-place showing is highly significant. ergo, this confirms that MIA is a major phenomenon in american pop-criticism circles. if you check out some of the debates that have taken place here on this subject, you’ll find that there’s a substantial desi contingent who actually chalked this up against her — they argued, basically, that since she appealed so much to the indie kids, it must follow that either she’s being exploited, or she sucks, or both. the extent of the hating really kind of shocked me. and to their credit a bunch of people then wrote in to say yeah, i’ve listened to her some more, and i like her better now.
what i find interesting from those discussions in how much MIA poses, if you will, a semiotic challenge to desis: they are not sure what to do with this suddenly-erupted celebrity in their midst. how she fares among desis will be an interesting sub-plot worth following when she drops another album.
peace siddhartha
i think some of the early hater-ade on MIA was because the critics at large were not taking into account what desis were saying about MIA. it might not have been her fault, but to have critics act as if MIA was doing something totally unheard of; when in some respect she was singing our life with her song; produces some hateration. personally i love her music and was really jazzed when i first even heard her. she still makes me heart rumble. her mixed metephors re: Sri Lanka are not a problem, they are quite understandable. the thing that galled was; MIA is one of us. And yet the critics were all up on her as if we, the other desis who get her, did not exist. talk about galang alangang
ah, very well put Sahej. ITA
I think something important to remember is this: the critical slop-kiss on M.I.A. started last year. Check out how many people voted for M.I.A. in P&J 04 (http://www.villagevoice.com/specials/pazznjop/04/ballots-votedfor.php?titleid=250790) and not just voted for her, but had her in their top five. (Some — like me — even had her at #1.) I still think the reason her sound resonates so strongly with so many music-lovers (desi or non-) is because her sound is actually different. Look at the rest of that list; how many other records there sound as ruinously odd as Arular?
Sure, as someone who’s spent their fair share of time in South Asia, there were a few things that struck chords of familiarity with me that might not with other people; I’m sure desis felt that even more profoundly. But you certainly (clearly) don’t have to be desi to get the simple fact that what she’s doing is cobbling together a new sound that people actually dig. My best guess is that the desi kids that relate to M.I.A. probably have a lot of the same musical cornerstones that these critics do and therefore were included in the royal “we” of knowing consumers with whom these reviews resonated. After all, you’re not gonna hear “Galang” at a SASA party, now are you?
Apart from being a different sound, or having origins in baile funk; MIA sings in a style that desis can kind of just “get”. not to get too far afield, but her use of mixed genres, the bravado, the way she almost mashes references and styles; that’s a diaspora. Thats the hybridity that Homi Bhaba talks about. Have you heard Homi Bhaba try to explain what he means by hybridity? He uses words and puts them in fragments, and uses just this complicated mash of ideas that someone works, and kicks a$$ too.
Yeah I get what you’re saying about desis being included. But some of what resonates about MIA is almost part of a lived experience of desis. Its like how “we” felt listening to Straight Outta Compton after we just finished listening to Asha Bhosle with our mom, who had just been called a dot head outside the store we had to do all the talking in because the cashier assumed our dad wouldn’t understand the english. And then you know what? We still come out of it bad-ass. To me that’s MIA. Its more than a new sound, a mix of grime and baile funk, a work created in multi-culti Britain. I’m sure other people get other things from MIA. But what is almost a quientessential hybridity that MIA lived through, is what some desis hear when they hear MIA. And the fact she has so much pride and no shame, and rocks it, just makes it better. So it kind of hurts when that well-spring of our experience is finally heard, and yet ignored at the same time.
when we hear MIA and see MIA we see and don’t see things that other people might not. Thats no knock; its just a statement that “we” as desis have had a lived experience that is valueable and we have a certain right to honor our lived exeperience as unique. Not better, not special, but nonetheless there. Its like that blues song that goes; I’m here, and everybody knows I’m here.
I don’t know if this sounds disjointed, but its not meant to be a knock. In some way, I can relate to hip hop, but when I hear a song that goes, let me take a trip down memory lane; I have to stop and realize that Nas is speaking about his life and living in the projects, and I can relate and try to feel him, but at some point he is speaking to his boys from Queensbridge and telling their story, and not mine as a brown kid who didn’t see a project till he was in his 20’s. I can still appreciate Nas and that song, and I would hope a fan who lived in Queensbridge would not begrudge that on some kind of territorial ground. But at the same time, I respect where that man from Queensbridge has been and that he’s lived an experience I just have not.
i voted for m.i.a. in my 2004 pazz n jop ballot (#2 album of the year–the ‘piracy funds terrorism’ mixtape), so i didn’t vote for her in 2005!
I play her at my (largely desi) house parties.
jason and sahej, very interesting back-and-forth, and i agree with both of you. sahej, i think that your response to MIA when she first came out was one of several different “typical” desi responses to her; while yours was one of recognition, i strongly suspect that many other desis found her alienating, both because they weren’t feeling the music and because fundamentally they didn’t recognize her, she didn’t square with their subconscious models of desi-ness. in that case, the early hipster bandwagon became an easy excuse/projection vehicle on which they could pin a discomfort that actually came from something more personal and profound.
at least that’s what i felt when the first threads on her began here. and while i feel a little silly conducting heavily generalizing social analysis on the basis of one artist (like when the postmodernists were writing PhD dissertations on madonna), i do think that there are some interesting strands here; enough perhaps to form some hypotheses that may or may not be borne out in the future.
geeta, no worries! this ain’t no kind of ethnic police… and i’m sorry for having missed you on my original post. scanning down the list of critics i should have known i’d miss someone.
peace
Manish wrote: I play her at my (largely desi) house parties.
And I bet your CD/MP3 collection is, in general, pretty wide-ranging and not a bunch of garbage either.
My point is that I don’t think people (desi or non-) like/dislike M.I.A. because she’s from South Asia. I think they like/dislike her because she’s far-out. I agree with Siddhartha’s last post about her “squaring” with preconceived notions; however I’d extend that beyond mere “desi-ness” into pure “music-ness.” The reason M.I.A. hasn’t caught on in the mainstream is because it’s not spoon-fed music and that’s exactly the same reason why so many “hipsters” are into her. Taking away any relevant cultural signifiers and judging it purely on sound would STILL result in the same group love she’s feeling.
Siddhartha, I see what you’re saying about those desis who just never fit with who MIA is. if one were generalizing, one could generalize that as the SASA-ite kind of crowd. But yeah my reaction was totally different to that. To me, the familiarity with her is what initially made me react against the reaction toward her. Listening to music means some many things. Music has always been a way to react to one’s life experience. And since in the US there are life experiences that are directed by class, color, gender, orientation, I think someone like MIA really touches a lot of bases.
So I’d also like to take polite exception to the fact MIA’s appeal is based on her producing a new sound. Maybe for some people that’s it. To be honest, the reason some critics loved MIA, I could not relate. And the way other critics related to her, was similiar to mine. I don’t think there is a problem with a critic or commentator explaining why they like a certain sound. But the “problem” if there is one, is that there has been a lack of representation of criticism that represents a broader range of why MIA is appealing. One can read why it is people like MIA. But as a desi, when one is not hearing that for a certain Segment of desis MIA is not really out of the blue but actually familiar, one might notice. Its all an incredibly complicated thing for me at least. I just feel like pointing out that MIA’s music is by and large square with who i am as a desi, and to have that be discounted just leaves something to be desired.
sahej –
aha! and that’s exactly the question i posed in the original post:
make that number three, since i forgot geeta, or four if you want to include me. the point remains the same. you’ll hear the kind of music criticism (or arts criticism in general) that you are looking for, if and only if someone produces it. better yet, produce it yourself. you’ve been doing this, actually, in your very interesting comments on this thread — with jason and the others, we’re performing criticism as a group enabled by the blog. it isn’t “published” but it sure is being read… you are reading your own work right now.
it doesn’t solve the problem you posed, on a general level. but ain’t it still a beautiful thing?
peace
I am neither Trini nor Guyanese but a true, brown Desi, albeit one reared in California.