The Top 50 Albums of the 2000s – Arular
Today I continue a series of posts dedicated to the best albums of the last decade, posting analysis of one album at a time.
33. MIA – Arular
There were two albums I purchased in high school while attending Dale Carnegie courses. Before going to class, I stopped by the ol’ CD store (remember those?) and snagged Weezer’s Make Believe and this, the debut LP from MIA. Needless to say, I was immensely impressed with one of them and the other, well, it got shelved. It seems now that MIA and Weezer might have more in common than we previously thought. Perhaps they both were destined to make two widely acclaimed works and then proceed to be hit or miss for all eternity. Only time will tell.
Still, we always have Arular, an album as exotic, engaging, and flat-out bizarre as its album cover reveals. From the horn hook of “Bucky Done Gun” to Maya’s still-infectious half-croon on “Galang,” the debut certainly is more minimalist and tribal than its sister album Kala, which was certainly a step forward in accessibility and Western dance music. The charm of Arular still remains, even though our protagonist later showed the world her lack of education on the actual political issues she was rapping about.
