"All I wanna do is [gunshot, gunshot, gunshot] and a [gun cocking, cash register] and take your money."

Kala, M.I.A.

Before I get into this, I want you all to know that I really really wanted to love this album (sorry, Julie!). "Paper Planes" is so awesome and so unique, and I desperately wanted the rest of the album to live up to that. Sadly, it doesn't really come close. There's only two other songs I have any interest in listening to--"Bamboo Banga" and "Come Around." Kala being Rolling Stone's number 1 album of the year* is even more ridiculous than Graduation being number six.

*I haven't heard that many albums from 2007, but my list would be something like:

1. In Rainbows, Radiohead: See my recent review.
   
2. Sky Blue Sky, Wilco: This is probably the worst of the six albums Wilco has released, and it's still excellent. I actually think it's worse because it's missing that extraordinary pain we're used to getting from Jeff Tweedy, but, in the end, it's hard to complain about that because he sounds happier and more peaceful than ever before. (How was this 44 on Rolling Stone?!)
   
3. Wincing the Night Away, The Shins: It took me a while to warm to this album, and it still can't touch Chutes Too Narrow, but it's got a lot of nice high points even with a significant amount of mediocrity. Then again, if they had just recorded "Sea Legs" ten times in a row, this would probably be number 1. I really hope their next album has a lot more of that Beck-sounding-hip-hop-beat-pop because that song is spectacular.
   
4. Eardrum, Talib Kweli: A solid album from Kweli. He'll probably never live up to the classics he began his career with--Black Star and Reflection Eternal/Train of Thought--but the man can still flow, and he's more fun to listen to than he's ever been.
   
5. Finding Forever, Common: Kanye's production on here is at least as good as his Graduation work, and Common's got some solid flow as well as significantly better lyrics than the word-vomit Kanye was pouring out this year. "Drivin' Me Wild," "Southside," and "Forever Begins" are all excellent songs.
   
6. Graduation, Kanye West: In a year filled with mild disappointments from some of my favorite artists, this easily took the cake. It's not exactly a bad album, but as a follow-up to The College Dropout and Late Registration, it's an enormous let-down. As far as I'm concerned, "Good Morning" is the only song that would definitely make The Dropout, and "Drunk and Hot Girls" is easily the worst song he's recorded. There's some solid stuff and all, but it's a very worrying album for me. See, no artist can make great music consistently forever, but I'm concerned that this isn't just a blip, and he's become so arrogant that he won't even be able to realize that the quality of his music has slipped, especially when he keeps winning Grammys all over the freaking place.
   
7. Kala, M.I.A.: See the review you're already reading. (I think that's everything I've bought from last year.)

The truth is that there's not anything that M.I.A. or her producer, Switch, are particularly talented at. Switch does some nice things, I guess--especially on "Paper Planes" of course, which is very original--but a lot of it is way too club-rappish, repetitive and commonplace. And M.I.A., while her accent is cool and everything and her flow is fine, doesn't seem to have any talent at, you know, writing. Most of her songs consist of her repeating shit over and over, and though this can occasionally work, like on "Bamboo Banga," it's mostly just annoying. And then when she raps in a more traditional way, her rhymes are mediocre at best. The best I can think of are, "I put people on the map who've never seen a map," and "I've got more records than the KGB," but neither of those are genuinely good, I don't think.

Overall 5.5/10: I'm not going to go through all the songs because there's really no point. "Paper Planes" is a great techno-hip-hop song, and "Come Around," and "Bamboo Banga" are very listenable, but the rest is just consistently mediocre. I don't hate Kala by any means, but I certainly wish I'd saved my $8.99 and just bought "Paper Planes."

(I guess that turned into a post more about my top albums of 2007 instead of Kala. Well, I'm sorry. Hopefully, you'll forgive me.)