M.I.A. - /\/\/\Y/\

Maya Arulpragasam is undoubtedly a great style icon, and indeed a fascinating pop star: bursting at the seams with charisma, drop-dead gorgeous, heroically cool, and no little bit controversial. But as a recording artist, this writer has long suspected M.I.A. of being slightly better in theory than in practice. She herself admits to having little in the way of actual musical ability, and even her acclaimed second album Kala, though unquestionably great, was not home to an abundance of killer tunes – the all-conquering, Slumdog Millionaire-soundtracking ‘Paper Planes’ aside, of course. Rather, it was sheer force of personality, an explosion of remarkable musical textures and Arulpragasam’s instinctive ability to weld together ideas from opposite ends of the globe (like resetting The Modern Lovers’ ‘Roadrunner’ to crisp bhangra beats, for instance) that got it over the line.

But great Kala remains, and the success of ‘Paper Planes’ means that, whatever you make of M.I.A.’s taste for truffle-flavoured French fries or her cavalier approach to politicking, /\/\/\Y/\ is one of the most anticipated releases of the year. More’s the pity, then, that it’s a catastrophic misfire, the musical equivalent of a Jabulani sailing over the bar and straight into Row Z. The writing’s on the wall from the off: for such a high-profile record, ‘The Message’ is a strangely obscure opening. Where ‘Bamboo Banga’ hurtled out of the speakers, this rather limps – there’s no tune to speak of and the cheap sloganeering to which its lyrics amount has always been M.I.A.’s weakest suit. At less than a minute long, you’re hopeful that it’s just an intro, and that the proper songs will kick in thereafter, but it transpires to be in keeping with the rest of what is a scrappy, undercooked and, frankly, pretty awful first half.

‘Steppin Up’ is all noise and no action; chainsaws scream and sirens wail, but M.I.A.’s treated vocal sounds dreadful and the song goes precisely nowhere. Lead single ‘XXXO’ isn’t much better – lazy platitudes (“You want me to be somebody who I’m really not”) set to tinny beats and a chorus worthy of The Eurovision. The singer sounds plain bored on ‘Lovalot’, where the queasy sloganeering (The Taliban, burqas and UNICEF are all referenced) and tendency towards eye-for-an-eye political flag-waving that have previously landed M.I.A. in hot water make another unwelcome appearance. From a musical standpoint, the song is barely even there and, like the majority of /\/\/\Y/\, ends up sounding like an idea that never got off the ground. It’s only on the seventh track, ‘It Takes A Muscle’, that a sliver of light shines through; but even here, while the loping reggae melody is appealing, the chorus is rather ruined by lathering M.I.A.’s voice in auto-tune. It does, though, kick off a patch where the record improves slightly. ‘It Iz What It Iz’ is arguably the strongest track here, and ‘Born Free’, although slight, generates forward momentum from a Suicide sample, while its echo-laden vocal hits its target. ‘Tell Me Why’ is M.I.A.’s shot at a song with mass appeal, and the tune is insidious, but once again her singing is an auto-tune-mangled shambles.

All told, the effect of /\/\/\Y/\ is to sap one’s spirit; M.I.A. isn’t always the easiest to like – even at her most inventive and sparkling you have to try to get past the political naivety and distinct sense that she is merely a well-connected opportunist slash provocateur. /\/\/\Y/\ just doesn’t make that effort seem worthwhile. A professed admirer of Madonna’s oeuvre, Arulpragasam will need plenty of Madge’s famed ability to rescue herself from artistic cul-de-sacs if she is to re-establish herself as a force to be reckoned with.