2007 in Review: Influences

I'm sick with Microsoft Paint.

The issue of influence and music has always been a fascinating one to me. Some bands garner critical acclaim while flagrantly relying on their influences, while others get summarily dismissed for the exact same thing. Even in a genre, like hip-hop, built in part on the sounds of other genres, rappers and producers often try to underplay their influences in hopes of convincing everyone that they are the sole architects of their own sound. There's always a subtle tug-of-war between artists and their inspirations, especially as musicians try to find the right balance of imitation and innovation.

That's why it's so useful to look at MIA's second attempt at genre-mashing (her 2007 release, Kala) in juxtaposition to Vampire Weekend's as-yet-unofficial 2007 debut. Close scrutiny of the two artists and their dazzling albums reveals plenty about struggling for that balance.

Both MIA and Vampire Weekend have a strong DIY approach, but where MIA sounds unapologetically raw, VW sounds unusually polished. MIA's "singing" usually sounds more like chanting or 80's-style rapping. Her production usually sounds unmastered - as if Kala were a demo being passed around friends and not the second critically-acclaimed release from MIA. In contrast, I actually did receive Vampire Weekend's LP as a demo that was being passed around among friends. And one of my first responses was to remark about how well-produced it sounded, how neat it was.

This neatness in Vampire Weekend's album seems to be an attempt, intended or incidental, to separate their sound from the influence of Afrobeat. Afrobeat is the music of the jungle, of the lush Niger River delta. To paraphrase its pioneer, Fela Kuti, it is the music of suffering and smiling, the music of African joy and sorrow. The genre's rambling sax solos and perpetual, danceable grooves don't lend themselves to neatness nor does its predilection for fifteen-minute songs. So, the three-minute ditties that Vampire Weekend compose are their own distinct brew, albeit a creation distilling the headiest aspects of Afrobeat. However, in taking out all Afrobeat's grit, VW also removes a large part of its soul. And the plastic soul that remains is so stiff in comparison.

Sometimes, lead singer Ezra Koenig sings with a sideways smirk - as if he's aware that the band is playing a loose translation. And that's the problem: there is too much self-awareness in their music. Afrobeat requires a lack of inhibition and a sloppiness that comes from playing from the gut, or somewhere even more primal. In trying to hack out their own version of jungle music, VW took all of the method of African music and left behind the madness. They streamlined the music, cleaned it up. They westernized it.

MIA does just the opposite. She muddles her indie rock influences with music well outside of their Western context. The first words on Kala are a steady chant of the chorus of Jonathan Richman's "Roadrunner." To call it a reinterpretation would be an understatement. The lyrics are set against a fuzzed-out bhangra-cum-Baltimore-club loop that defies you to sit still. Though the Modern Lovers probably never intended to go here, their proto-punk aesthetic remains. It just has a more robust rhythm section. And MIA doesn't stop there. She snatches the distorted guitar and syncopated bassline on the opening of "Straight to Hell" from the Clash (no stranger to genre-mashing themselves) and fashions it into "Paper Planes," a droning Third World hustler;s anthem complete with jingling cash registers and gunshots. In doing so, MIA takes the Clash's political message and expounds on it. And then there's what she does with the chorus of the Pixies' "Where is my Mind?" MIA saves an especially grimy and indescribable electroclash soundtrack against which to interpolate the Pixies hit. Against bewildering sonic palette of "$20," the song's main question becomes particularly pertinent. Just where the hell is her mind?

MIA's influences (bhangra, soca, baile funk, hip-hop, indie rock, and didgeridoos) are hardly the most straightforward fare, but in every case she succeeds in incorporating them into her sound without deracinating them. In the middle of all her distortion, the soul of her influences is revealed just as clear as the original artist intended. Their intention is never lost because MIA's never self-conscious about revealing her influences. She's comfortable, the kind of comfort that comes from not singing with a smirk.


Downloads
Fela Kuti: Shuffering and Shmiling (from Shuffering and Shmiling/No Agreement)

Vampire Weekend: Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa
Oxford Comma (both from their forthcoming debut)

MIA: Paper Planes
$20 (both from Kala)