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(In a cage fight, this is kind of an even match-up, no? Sri Lankan vs NewYorker. Both seem scrappy.)

Over at the Vulture blog, Amos Barshad makes the reasonable point that “Lady Gaga’s visuals and general public persona greatly, greatly trumps the fairly uninteresting music she makes.” Now personally, I love that “fairly uninteresting” music because I love schlock-pop tunes that I can jog to at the gym and fist-pump to in my car. But I get that Gaga’s edge is visual while her music is mass. Honestly, if her music matched her look more…I probably wouldn’t listen to it as much. It’d sound like Yoko Ono crap.

But I love a good celeb death-match (when there’s no chance that it’ll end up with someone getting shanked outside a club)…and in NME (via Vulture via ONTD), M.I.A. takes aim at Gaga’s neck!

(NME: Do we still need record labels?)
M.I.A: Are they even interested in making money from music anymore? Lady Gaga plugs 15 things in her new video. Dude, she even plugs a burger!**

(NME: Do you think those programmes [X-Factor] and the Internet have destroyed the mythology around popstars?)
M.I.A.: I don’t know. Again, there’s Lady Gaga — people say we’re similar, that we both mix all these things in the pot and spit them out differently, but she spits it out exactly the same! None of her music’s reflective of how weird she wants to be or thinks she is. She models herself on Grace Jones and Madonna, but the music sounds like 20-year-old Ibiza music, you know? She’s not progressive, but she’s a good mimic. She sounds more like me than I fucking do! …

More of M.I.A’s Lady Gaga criticism after the jump….

M.I.A. continues: That’s a talent and she’s got a great team behind her, but she’s the industry last’s stab at making itself important – saying, ‘You need our money behind you, the endorsements, the stadiums’ Respect to her, she’s keeping a hundred thousand people in work, but my belief is: Do It Yourself.

NME: How important are image and visuals to your music?

M.I.A.: Very. But it’s not like “Haus of Gaga” (laughs). Me blindfolded with naked men feeding me apples and shit.


**Lol, I think this is the video that M.I.A. is referring to: Lady Gaga feat. Beyonce “Telephone”….with the various product placement. How much did that Honeybun placement cost? ; ) Not sure which video features the apple-feeding ; ) Is it “Bad Romance” or “Poker Face“?