The one key definite about Arular is that it's the best kind of pop album imaginable.
It's still too early to tell what the final fate of this little slice of brilliance will be. If she never crosses that bridge to pop success though, we'll always have a home for her on this side.
The closest thing to a truism about Arular is that it's a taut, invigorating distillation of the world's most thrilling music; a celebration of contradictions and aural globalization that recasts the tag "world music" as the ultimate in communicative pop rather than a symbol of condescending piety.
Arular beats out most everything I’ve heard this year in terms of creativity, energy, dance-ability and fun. It’s catchy, original in its mix of styles, and signals the entrance of an impressive talent onto the hip-hop scene.
Arular's irresistible blend of crafty refugee chic and subversive digital skipping rhymes will do very nicely for the moment.
Arular is a head-turning, head-bopping album that defies even that sweeping genre.
M.I.A.’s long-awaited full-length debut, Arular, is every bit as stunning as “Galang”: weird, playful, unclassifiable, sexy, brilliantly addictive.
Arular is a fantastic amalgamation of dozens of styles, too many to be classified by one, perhaps even deserving of a whole new genre.
Her debut album and already she shows all of the potential in her style.
Arular is a trippy listen with the tone of genre blending such as Funk Brasileiro or Tamborzão.
The production competently uses the potential of these genres creating a fun and complex instrumental.
M.I.A.'s performance as always is extremely catchy and with a lot of political topics that can be interpreted.
Overall every track on this album is catchy creative and unique.
8.5 - Amazing
I’ll start this like the Kala review.
This shit BANGS. Why didn’t I listen to this sooner?
My friend has been obsessed with this album over the past few months. He wanted to check out most of Fantano’s albums he featured on Classic Week, and this is the one he fell in love with the most. He’d talk about it a lot, with his discord profile picture becoming MIA as well. A month ago, I tried Kala, an album that really introduced me to the artist, and it was ... read more
Summer Listening Series: #18
I was intrigued by the album cover to listen to this album. I really like it and I think it’s kinda a perfect representation of the album. A bit of everything, everywhere but it just works. Each track has got a mix of layers percussion and electronic instruments, and no matter what she does with them it just seems to work perfectly. My only issue with this album is I found some of the hooks a bit annoying after a while.
Favourite track: Amazon
M.I.A.'s debut record is actually quite amazing. I love her unique and personal sound that is unmatchable by any other.
Really fun still sounds unique and cool all around. Sorta forgot stuff but the production was a but much sometimes or boring aswell as vocals.
1 | Banana (Skit) 0:36 | 77 |
2 | Pull Up the People 3:45 | 79 |
3 | Bucky Done Gun 3:46 | 85 |
4 | Sunshowers 3:16 | 81 |
5 | Fire, Fire 3:27 | 79 |
6 | Dash the Curry (Skit) 0:40 | 77 |
7 | Amazon 4:16 | 79 |
8 | Bingo 3:12 | 79 |
9 | Hombre 4:02 | 79 |
10 | One for the Head (Skit) 0:29 | 76 |
11 | 10 Dollar 4:01 | 85 |
12 | U.R.A.Q.T. 2:55 | 76 |
13 | Galang 3:33 | 84 |
14 | M.I.A 3:27 | 77 |
#2 | / | SPIN |
#4 | / | Pitchfork |
#4 | / | Slant Magazine |
#6 | / | No Ripcord |
#11 | / | Rolling Stone |
#25 | / | NME |
#36 | / | Gigwise |