“A.R. was the most established, amazing producer…He works with 100-people orchestras, and his sound is huge. Then on the other end of the room was me, making music on GarageBand [software] and playing Danny these really gritty, badly recorded MP3s. We had all these meetings and stuff, and then I realized that’s what the movie is — it’s the contradiction between these two things. That’s what the whole continent [of India] is…
“If I was painting a picture of that part of the world, it’s not that I’d make it more glum, but I would try not to involve all the positive stuff from it, like the singing and dancing and easy stuff. I think we’re already used to that, and comfortable with that part. So there times that I was like, ‘We don’t have to make it so Bollywood’ … Danny, I think, wanted it to be good on both sides. He wanted the Indian population to get it, as well as the West. That’s a really difficult thing to do, and I think he did it — I think he did it really well.”
From Todd Martens’s 11/24 interview with artist M.I.A., re: her electrifying work on the “Slumdog Millionaire” soundtrack.
5 responses so far
1 11-26-2008 at 10:44 am
Andrew L. said...
I don’t like this new wave of fans that basically jumped on the bandwagon after Pineapple Express (especially since most of them were writing her off)
2 11-26-2008 at 10:56 am
Kristopher Tapley said...
Well, you can’t put me in that category. I was on the bandwagon before I knew what the heck “Pineapple Express” was. :)
3 11-26-2008 at 11:47 am
Chris said...
Andrew, would you rather people continued listening to garbage?
I’ve know M.I.A. for years, I went to a concert 2 years ago, and seriously: the more people like this incredible artist and support her, the better!
4 11-26-2008 at 10:19 pm
Glenn said...
M.I.A. is brilliant. She could release a new full length album every week and each one would probably be as good as a last.
5 11-27-2008 at 11:37 am
Andrew L. said...
Chris: No, but at the same time, she shouldn’t be marginalized as simply the “chick who has a song in ____”
Glenn: Let’s not get hyperbolic now; though I do like her, that bonus track with Timbaland on Kala has an ominous feeling to it. I might be wrong, but there’s something unnerving about the collaboration that screams jumping the gun. And it’s also a slippery slope toward sloppy, lazy, run-of-the-mill sampling.