It seems like everyone is talking about the new M.I.A. record, /\/\/\Y/\, this week, one of the more critically divisive albums in recent memory. Like many other critics, I didn’t like the record—you can read my PopMatters review if you would like to know why. Still, I’m not sure how to feel about being included in Flavorwire’s list of “The Meanest and Funniest Reviews of M.I.A.’s /\/\/\Y/\”. Of course, my intent in writing the review was not to be mean (or even funny, for that matter) but to offer my honest assessment of the work at hand. And yes, while I am quite disappointed with /\/\/\Y/\, I still hold M.I.A. in very high regard as an artist and I hope that that comes across in my review.
One thing that I was thrilled to be included in was Rich Juzwiak’s brilliant piece, “A Collage for a Collage,” which constructs a review of /\/\/\Y/\ entirely from recontextualized fragments from over 40 other reviews. Yeah, it’s a clever gimmick, one that mimics M.I.A.’s own cut-and-paste mode of production. But it’s also a surprisingly incisive piece, a shotgun blast of adjectives that manages to distill a weeks’ worth of blogosphere hand-wringing into a single, 1,500 word review. If you read one review of /\/\/\Y/\, you should probably make it Juzwiak’s—just don’t blame me if the bright blue, hyperlink-saturated text gives you a headache.
