Everyone knows that music festivals are big business, with tens of millions made (ticket sales, beer vending, corporate sponsorship) and lost (artist fees, production costs) every summer. But what happens when big business decides to throw it’s own festival? You get Virgin Free Fest. Run as a multi-city paid festival in 2006 and 2007, the mobile phone company’s attempt at playing with big dogs like Coachella, Lollapalooza and Bonarroo never seemed to hit it’s stride—perhaps due to it’s location in Maryland. Then last year, super rich bad-ass mofo Richard Branson decided to make the whole shebang free, and called upon Blink-182, Weezer and Jet to bring in the masses. This year, he’s banking on a cooler selection, including Thievery Corporation, M.I.A., LCD Soundsystem and Temper Trap to do the same. …MORE
Following the cancellation of the HARD LA event with M.I.A. and N*E*R*D this weekend, the promoters have announced a revised lineup for HARD Summer, the event already scheduled to take place August 7 at Los Angeles State Historic Park. While neither headliner for HARD LA has made the move to the new line-up, LA residents Flying Lotus, Switch and Gaslamp Killer have all been added to the line-up which already featured Soulwax, Crystal Castles, Major Lazer and Erol Alkan. …MORE
Diplo hasn’t been shy about not feeling M.I.A.’s new album (neither have a lot of reviewers). But the producer (and ex-BF) responsible for much of the music found on M.I.A.’s first two albums has made some especially harsh statements to Blackbookmag.com.
On what went wrong with MAYA: She didn’t care about it. I was in the studio with her, she didn’t write anything.
On the long running partnership with Diplo and Switch: Me and Switch tried our best to be quality control of the record and she didn’t want that. She kind of went on her own way. I was like, Look, nobody in your crew—we were the only people she could trust, and our asses were on the line too. We got here because …
During the conclusion of last week’s episode of Entourage, movie star Vincent Chase goes skydiving in a desperate search for the rush he’s long since lost as a major celebrity. As the character plummets towards the ground, the weightless voice of M.I.A. sings out “Gravity is my enemy” and the final track of her latest album, MAYA, folds into the closing credits. It’s the best context yet for the album and artist that has struggled to resonate with the a global audience in 2010. First there was the politically unsophisticated if visually shocking video for the song “Born Free” which was banned from Youtube for it’s graphic depiction of redheaded youths being blown up. The clip garnered heavy-buzz, but little conversation about the dissonant song it accompanied. That was followed in quick succession by a scathing cover story in New York Times Magazine, a willfully eligible album title (officially it’s /\/\ /\ Y /\), a scathing review of the CD on the ultra-influential website Pitchfork.com and most recently, the cancellation of the 25,000 person HARD LA festival—which banked on M.I.A. to both headline and curate the line-up—due to poor ticket sales. …MORE
M.I.A. isn’t taking a few bad reviews and one canceled concert sitting down. She hit Letterman last night with a vengeance, taking the stage with Martin Rev of Suicide (who’s “Ghost Rider” sample makes up “Born Free’s” main riff) and her own gang of Slim Shady’s basically telling the haters to get fucked. And how does big Dave respond to the most aggro performance seen on his program in decades? “Happy Halloween.”
1comment