M.I.A. Gets Rev'd Up

I don't really watch Letterman anymore. I used to back in college, but that was a looooong time ago. In any event, apparently Dave had M.I.A. on earlier this week. While I'm relatively late to the table in appreciating the oeuvre of the controversy-baiting Maya Arulpragasam, I've somewhat cooled on her in the wake of that cover story in the New York Times magazine and its accompanying fallout (click here for all that, if you give a hoot). Prior to that, though, I was captivated by M.I.A.'s "Born Free" single, largely as it was essentially just a wholesale cribbing of NYC proto-punk stalwarts Suicide's "Ghost Rider" (in much the same way "Paper Planes" was essentially the Clash's "Straight to Hell"). Coupled with her violent-if-convoluted video for same, she had my attention.

Evidently, Simon Vozick-Levinson from EW online didn't think too much of M.I.A.'s performance of "Born Free" on Letterman's "Late Show" (complete with a phalanx of M.I.A. lookalikes ala AC/DC's "Who Made Who" video from way back in the day). I thought it was alright, but Vozick-Levinson buried the fucking lead as far as I'm concerned, for who was hammering away on the keybs behind the army of Mayas by Martin Rev of Suicide himself. Shame on you for that oversight, Simon.

That doesn't make M.I.A. any less of an lippy, hypocritical irritant (by design, of course), but I thought that was kinda cool.