M.I.A., “Bad Girls”

“People say, ‘Oh, she’s cheating — she has no guitar, she can’t play anything, she can’t even sing,’” she admits. “But that’s why music is so textbook these days. You’ve got to flip it — yeah I can’t play and sing but I’m gonna do something you could never copy and do. That’s the philosophy of M.I.A. — cut and paste and bish and bosh.”

Yesterday, Fader posted their 2004 cover story with M.I.A. online for the first time, which immediately sent me down a very enjoyable auditory time warp. Even though “Galang” is still probably her best song, and “Jimmy” remains my favorite song, the video it made me want to watch was “Bad Girls,” which might be my favorite music video…ever. There’s something about the image of M.I.A. wearing just a long-sleeved black t-shirt, singing straight to the camera, that I can watch on a loop forever.