M.I.A.: MAYA (2LP) [XL RECORDINGS]

Why you'll love it

This gatefold 2LP set gives MAYA's noisy, bass-heavy production four sides. It became her highest-charting album in the US at No. 9 on the Billboard 200, and debuted in the top 10 in Canada.

This edition

• 2LP set
• Gatefold jacket

About the album

M.I.A. made most of MAYA at her house in Los Angeles, and it sounds like a home studio where the internet never switches off. She wanted the record to feel like a digital ruckus, and she got it, folding industrial clatter into her sound for the first time. The follow-up to 2007's Kala, it came out in July 2010 through her own N.E.E.T. imprint with XL and Interscope.

She wrote and produced much of it with Blaqstarr and Rusko, with Diplo, Switch and her brother Sugu also pitching in. "Born Free" is a roaring punk-electro blast built on a Suicide sample, "Teqkilla" is a long, woozy party track, "It Takes a Muscle" drifts into sunny dub-pop, and "Lovalot," "Steppin Up" and "Story to Be Told" crackle with distorted bass and glitch. She previewed several songs online before the album arrived.

It entered the UK chart at No. 21, her best placing there, and its abrasive edges have aged into something rather prophetic. We'd describe it as ahead of its time, but the album would probably object to being described.

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Tracklist

Listen

On XL Recordings / N.E.E.T. (cat# XLLP 497), a reissue of the 2010 album.