Maya Arulpragasm , better known as M.I.A.,  first gave us her unique blend of world music and electro-clash on her 2005 debut, Arular, which received a great deal of attention from music blogs and critics. She followed that by channeling her inner pop star with a surprise Top Ten smash and a track with Timbaland on her next album, Kala. Needless to say, Paper Planes will continue to define M.I.A.’s career for those who dare not venture musically outside of the Top 40 radio stations, even with the excellent tracks that populate both of her previous releases.

M.I.A. had a choice to make for her next release: embrace the pop aspects of her music that brought her a lot of fans, or continue to make challenging yet enjoyable albums that push the limits of her genre. Fortunately for both sides, she chose to incorporate both into her newest album, Maya (ΛΛΛYΛ).

Maya was reportedly recorded in a cave; it sounds more like it was recorded in a factory with the whirring and buzzing of machinery being used as a background. And if that doesn’t challenge the average listener, then the fiercely political nature of some of the songs will. With the opening track connecting the people to the iPhone to Google to the government and the graphic music video to Born Free, where redheads are rounded up by the government and killed by bombs and bullets, the political nature of M.I.A. (who was the daughter of a Tamil rebel in Sri Lanka) is displayed once again. M.I.A. has always been political in her music, but Maya is her most overtly political album yet.

The flipside of Maya is best represented by the two singles from the album, Xxxo and Tell Me Why. Xxxo definitely has the potential to find its way onto the Top 40 and getting remixed by every DJ and their mother like Paper Planes did (Fun Fact —-> It already has been, I’ve checked). It’s not as fun as Paper Planes, but it is very catchy and danceable without being incredibly stupid or boring, as most songs of this nature tend to be. One interesting thing I noticed about the lyrics in the chorus is the line, “You want me to be/Somebody who I’m really not.” Perhaps this alludes to a reluctance towards becoming a pop star, slyly placed in the single that has the potential to blow up the charts.

All in all, there’s not a bad song on Maya, but it comes off a little conflicted at times. Her opening about the iPhone is problematic, because the same people who are jump at every Mac product available are the ones who helped make her famous. The album lacks a cohesiveness in theme and style that [nearly] every truly great album has. My personal favorites on this album are

1.  Born Free —> which builds like a freight train and then runs you over full speed ahead

2.  It Takes a Muscle —> lilting, reggae influenced

3.  Space —> a gentle atmospheric number with a fun buzzing synth punctuating the song.