“Information Politics.” That’s the theme of the new M.I.A. album according to Ms. Arulpragasam herself. The idea is that it’s myth to think that all of this instantly accessible information at our fingertips has truly set us free, when most of the information we’re click-click-clicking away at on a daily basis is searched, forged, and founded upon social control—pre-viewed, pre-collected, and pre-organized to give us the information they want us to have. At least I think that’s the idea. But hell, despite all the evil hegemony out there, I love the internet, and it’s certainly played at least some part in the flood of hype surrounding M.I.A.’s latest. She seemed set to release her most ambitious album yet and worked the information superhighway to its limit to get us salivating appropriately: a track leaking here, schizophrenically ugly cover art there, a Diplo tweet... OK, M.I.A. probably had nothing to do with those tweets, and they were anything but flattering. So maybe /\/\ /\ Y /\ is more about privacy politics and the internet than it is about subjectivity. Wait...

Either way, M.I.A.’s latest record feels like it’s reaching for something it’s unsure of, and this sentiment leaks through the cracks of her arguments and expounds them with bloated over-production for underwhelming songs. Its ambiguous theme is never really whittled down into something definitive or game-changing. Worst of all, the album is anything but ambitious—a major bummer, especially given the fact that the overall formula hasn’t really changed here. M.I.A. has her typical go-tos for production creds, even tacking on Sleight Bells’ Derek E. Miller for good measure. But overall, these fellows (most notably, the generally-reliable Diplo) fall miserably short, offering up beats that come off as plain by Kala and Arular standards and push M.I.A.’s sound into more familiar, backward-looking styles that are counterintuitive to what made her so exciting to begin with.

On /\/\ /\ Y /\, M.I.A. finds herself treading ground upon which she should never have set foot: arena rock (“Meds and Feds”), reggae (“It Takes a Muscle,” or the largely forgettable “It Iz What It Iz”), sing-song balladry (“Space”), electro-clash pop (lead single, “XXXO”—an utter disaster of a song). Or at least none of these styles are M.I.A.’d enough to make them worth their brief excursions. These songs feel awkwardly crammed in, off-kilter diversions she wouldn’t have dared to call her own just a few years ago. In creating a world for her music, M.I.A. has gotten lost in an attempt to further captivate a pop-music audience on a larger scale. It’s hard to swallow an M.I.A. who resorts to such tired tricks as played out electro-dance keyboard hooks and auto-tuned blah-melodies.

But the record isn’t a total loss either. In fact, M.I.A. proves best when she’s just plain being herself, and a few particular tracks speak closer to her unique pop-music position than others. “Steppin’ Up” finds collaborator Rusko rustling up an appropriately heavy stomp for a beat replete with drills and buzz-saws, giving Arulpragasam the proper biting backdrop for her scathing rapping which is perhaps at its strongest on this song. “Teqkilla,” works well in so much as it comes closest to having a memorable hook, even though that hook is largely made up of whooped and whirled electronics. The album’s best cut is “Lovealot,” which is creepy, slinky, and a little disturbing. It sounds like what a progressive M.I.A. beat should be trying to accomplish: just different enough to garner a second-look, but bombastic enough to shake the booty, too.

M.I.A.’s new album may be widely regarded as a flop. But maybe we should take it easy on her. Girl just had a baby, reacted to a disastrous interview with New York Times Magazine in a less-than-suave manner, and spent the past several months raising beef with a bevy of other pop stars... But wait just a darned minute. These are all things M.I.A. did to herself. Long gone are the times when pop stars received a free pass from the critical masses. With a back-catalog many would die for, including two of the past decade’s finer pop albums, M.I.A. seemed poised to unleash her masterstroke, and she prefaced the entire thing with a provocative (however poorly explored) theme and ironically worked the information superhighway to its limit to get us salivating appropriately. So maybe it’s time we opened up our eyes and took seriously what M.I.A. is telling us about looking through the web these days. Take her advice, trust our instincts with this one, and decide for ourselves beyond the hype: Maya, you can do better.

Track List:
1. The Message
2. Steppin Up
3. XXXO
4. Teqkilla
5. Lovalot
6. Story To Be Told
7. It Takes A Muscle
8. It Iz What It Iz
9. Born Free
10. Meds And Feds
11. Tell Me Why
12. Space