Advanced Search >
Help Me Search

Music

All-Time High (And Low) Scores
Best of 2009
Best of 2008
Best of 2007
Best of 2006
Best of 2005
Best of 2004
Best of 2003
Best of 2002
Best of 2001
Best of 2000
Best of the Decade

Upcoming &
Recent Releases

sort by namesort by score

75 2562
54 30 Seconds to Mars
62 50 Cent
71 AC/DC
70 The Album Leaf
52 Kris Allen
68 Tori Amos
66 Animal Collective
84 Animal Collective
77 Annie
57 Apse
63 Asobi Seksu
59 Bad Lieutenant
83 Julianna Barwick
82 Beach House
72 Beak>
72 Bibio
65 Justin Bieber
76 Biffy Clyro
74 Blakroc
75 Mary J. Blige
78 Blockhead
52 Bon Jovi
54 Susan Boyle
57 The Bravery
39 Chris Brown
64 V.V. Brown
70 Basia Bulat
79 Chew Lips
74 Citay
65 Clipse
66 Cold War Kids
75 The Cribs
58 Dashboard Confessional
81 Dave Rawlings Machine
70 Delphic
78 The Doors
58 Echo & The Bunnymen
73 Edan
59 Editors
69 Eels
80 Felt
74 First Aid Kit
69 Flyleaf
83 Four Tet
82 Ben Frost
82 Fucked Up
83 Charlotte Gainsbourg
63 The Gilded Palace Of Sin
68 Githead
65 Joe Goddard
58 Good Shoes
72 Gucci Mane
75 Holopaw
82 Jesca Hoop
79 Hot Chip
72 The Hot Rats
88 Ray Wylie Hubbard
54 Hurricane Chris
66 Allison Iraheta
59 Jay Sean
82 Freedy Johnston
57 Nick Jonas And The Administration
73 Norah Jones
49 Juvenile
58 Ke$ha
62 R. Kelly
66 Alicia Keys
68 Kid Sister
81 King Midas Sound
63 Lady Antebellum
76 Lady GaGa
71 Adam Lambert
78 Lawrence Arabia
61 Leona Lewis
74 Lightspeed Champion
36 Lil Wayne
82 Lindstrom & Christabelle
77 Lissie
78 Los Campesinos!
70 Lostprophets
73 Magnetic Fields
72 Massive Attack
64 John Mayer
71 Paul McCartney
58 Katherine McPhee
86 Memory Tapes
72 Midlake
88 Motion City Soundtrack
63 Mr. Hudson
53 Mudvayne
75 Oh No Ono
70 OK Go
72 Ola Podrida
61 OneRepublic
80 Owen Pallett
80 Pantha du Prince
90 Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
80 Phantogram
60 Pit Er Pat
63 Priestess
70 Radian
79 Corinne Bailey Rae
54 Rakim
79 Real Estate
77 Retribution Gospel Choir
76 Rihanna
64 Rjd2
65 Omar Rodriguez-Lopez
77 Sade
77 Gil Scott-Heron
72 Shakira
82 Shining
61 Snoop Dogg
62 Snow Patrol
71 The Soft Pack
80 Spoon
64 Ringo Starr
59 Stereophonics
76 Angie Stone
79 Surfer Blood
74 Switchfoot
75 Them Crooked Vultures
74 Robin Thicke
50 Timbaland
79 tUnE-YaRDs
80 Vampire Weekend
79 Laura Veirs
79 Tom Waits
78 Wale
65 The Watson Twins
66 Kanye West
76 The Whitefield Brothers
64 Robbie Williams
80 Yeasayer
62 Young Money
75 Neil Young
61 Rob Zombie

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed albums.

Kala

EMAILPRINTby M.I.A.

M.I.A. reviews
87
8.2 User Score:

Album Info

Label: Interscope

Release Date: 21 August 2007

Discs: 1 disc

Genre(s): Rap

Summary

The UK rapper returns with her second album, which was recorded in several countries.

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Stylus Magazine

In a voice that shifts from pout to growl in a beat’s time, M.I.A.'s verses and hooks are as mercurial in tone as the backing tracks.

Read Full Review >
100

Los Angeles Times

The album hits hardest by embodying the process by which certain voices are bottled up and distorted within the global noise of what M.I.A. calls "Third World Democracy."

Read Full Review >
100

The Onion (A.V. Club)

Kala is such a resolutely strange, sweltering album that it's thrilling to be alive in an era when such a thing can lay claim to the mantle of "pop."

Read Full Review >
90

RapReviews.com

It is more expansive and daring--resulting in more highs and lows than "Arular."

Read Full Review >
90

Urb

Her most anticipated follow-up is again the most cross cultural jam you'll hear this year. [Sep/Oct 2007, p.129]

90

BBC collective

M.I.A. and co-producers, including Switch, straddle more styles than you’d find in most music collections, let alone on the same disc.

Read Full Review >
90

Spin

M.I.A.'s border-crossing dance pop is a revolutionary manifesto set to the victory-party vibe of the future. [Sep 2007, p.127]

90

Rolling Stone

Kala strikes deep. There's a resolute sarcasm, a weariness and defiant determination, a sense of pleasure carved out of work--articulated by the lyrics, embodied by the music.

Read Full Review >
90

Drowned In Sound

With its mix of Tamil pop, Baltimore beats and, yes, funk carioca Kala succeeds best in pulling genres together to make something both unique and identifiable --a 'hip-hop' record that explores what it means to sing about "hip-hop things."

Read Full Review >
90

PopMatters

M.I.A. has given us one of the albums of the year. Bravo.

Read Full Review >
90

musicOMH.com

Here she is doing what she does best--weaving the sounds and statements of the people she's writing about into the song itself.

Read Full Review >
90

All Music Guide

Kala nearly makes "Arular" seem tame in comparison, magnifying most of its predecessor's qualities as it remains bracingly adventurous.

Read Full Review >
90

Prefix Magazine

The result is Kala a stark confrontation of set notions of authenticity and identity--and my new favorite record.

Read Full Review >
89

Pitchfork

Kala is clattering, buzzy, and sonically audacious.

Read Full Review >
87

cokemachineglow

Although there are a couple of failed tracks--like the tediously slow 'The Turn'--most of this stuff is groundbreaking.

Read Full Review >
80

Billboard

Even more so than her arresting 2005 indie debut, "Arular," M.I.A. comes off as a globetrotting activist on sophomore effort Kala.

Read Full Review >
80

Hot Press

Kala is an intoxicating junk-culture travelogue, a genre-humping mash-up of Bollywood rumbles, shrieking guitars and machine-gun rhymes.

Read Full Review >
80

New Musical Express

MIA innovates club music, art music and pop music at every turn.

Read Full Review >
80

Hartford Courant

Kala is pop music without the vapidity, and political music without the condescension.

Read Full Review >
80

Mojo

Defiant cosmopolitanism doesn't come much more feisty, or compelling than this. [Sep 2007, p.104]

80

Dot Music

Three loud cheers for her scattershot creativity, please.

Read Full Review >
80

The Wire

'Bomboo Banga' is pure power monotony, her deadpan one-note voice mixed with car engines, samples of Bombay pop, Booty Bass and tribal rhythms, is a perfect soundtrack to a stroll down London's Banglatown. [Sep 2007, p.57]

80

Lost At Sea

Kala is only received as a political record if you listen up properly. The music itself no longer asserts itself like a militia; it's too calm and more scattered.

Read Full Review >
80

Tiny Mix Tapes

At first, you’re itching for her to tear into such a juicy beat. But after a couple of listens, you realize it’s a tactful deference that allows her to be in the mix without commandeering it. She could if she wanted to, but she’s passed that.

Read Full Review >
80

Blender

The impact of M.I.A.'s music isn't in what she says, but how it arrives: in tracks so irritating they're irresistible. Anything but naive, M.I.A. brings a connoisseur's ear to her beats.

Read Full Review >
80

Sputnikmusic

Kala is definitely a song-based album, but, that being said, the songs fit together perfectly, and even more surprisingly, they’re all good.

Read Full Review >
80

Uncut

She twangs the boundaries of taste both lyrically ("Take me on a genocide tour/Take me on a trip to Darfur") and musically. But a knockout's a knockout, however messy the bout.

Read Full Review >
80

Observer Music Monthly

There are the terrible lyrics and more than a few moments where her one-style-fits-all MCing grates, but there's also the politics that no one else would touch, an intelligence, colour and humour, and the added benefit of centrifugally heavy production. Skip a couple, and you're in for a treat.

Read Full Review >
80

Q Magazine

Everything here is a fantastic hybrid, M.I.A. and her platoon of producers thieving fashionable street sounds from Baltimore hip hop to Brazil's baile funk. [Sep 2007, p.89]

80

The Guardian

Even at its weakest moments, Kala sounds unique--and, thrillingly, like an album that could only have been made in 2007, which is not something you can say about many albums made in 2007.

Read Full Review >
80

Under The Radar

Kala not only doesn't disappoint, it renews faith in M.I.A. and confirms her commitment to the individualistic sound she has created. [Summer 2007, p.74]

75

Entertainment Weekly

Kala is propelled by genuinely stellar moments. [24 Aug 2007, p.133]

70

Slant Magazine

M.I.A., undoubtedly the truest "outsider" to emerge on the pop landscape in ages, has crafted an album that, in its best moments, positions her as an impassioned advocate for the disenfranchised.

Read Full Review >
70

Dusted Magazine

Inconclusive. Kala plays as mixed media pastiche, a barely restrained amalgam of ideas that are hardly exhausted by beats or flow and double and triple as political references.

Read Full Review >
68

Almost Cool

Like her debut, Kala is somewhat inconsistent, for slightly different reasons. While there isn't the distraction of short tracks and skits to break the flow, some of the songs essentially do the same thing by shooting high and missing the mark.

Read Full Review >
58

cokemachineglow

Kala is the sound of a hugely creative, angry, head-strong young artist reaching well beyond her means, both musically and politically, and coming up short, though, to be fair, it still manages to contain a few of the best songs of the year.

Read Full Review >
30

Vibe

The majority of Kala is limp and unfocused. [Sep 2007, p.133]

What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this album is 8.2 (out of 10) based on 151 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Johnny Flow gave it a10:
This is a fantastic album and a true original, big upgrade over the impressive Arular. But I understand how M.I.A.'s music can divide people. It's definitely a love-it-or-hate-it sound. I will also concede that she is a weak M.C. and downright awful live performer. She is purely an album artist and an interesting person to interview. But damn, what a record... just don't expect to hear specific genre, expect to hear something totally different.

Jooby Dooby gave it a10:
Perfect album.

Milosz D. gave it a2:
I agree that this is overhyped. There *is* a big mix of styles, but that in itself doesn't really mean the album is great, even though some reviewers seem to have based it purely on this notion. It is like Vibe says unfocused, there's no poignancy and it ends up being something in between annoying and dull. 2 Points and that's even with some good will.

Paula K. gave it a10:
Crazy.Cool.Hot.Nice..

Dave h gave it a9:
Pretty spectacular and wildly unique! amazing album! best songs- bamboo banga, birdflu, boyz, jimmy, hussel, 20 dollar, xr2, paper planes and come around are all outstanding tracks!

Kumuthan x gave it a10:
MIA is excellent! talented. a genius. her music is like abstract art. only some of you will "get it".

Matt C. gave it a1:
Pure tripe.

Read more user comments >

Popular on CBS sites: College Signing Day | Olympics | Lost | iPhone | Cell Phones | Video Game Reviews | Free Music

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2010 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy (UPDATED) | Terms of Use