Suicide Joins MIA to Do Born Free on Letterman

MIA had a stab at authenticity recently, enlisting Suicide's Martin Rev to help her play her new track born free. Was this a bit of a thankyou to the old punk rocker for letting her pinch his seminal Ghost Rider riff? or is appearing to be bros with an old school, unknown, commercially unsuccessful musician some kind of ploy to realign the pop imagine she has found herself resigned to.
Fueled by anything from her billionaire husband, the questionable pseudo political "statements" she appears to be appearing to make in her music, her likeness to Lady Ga-Ga, pregnant performances, mediocre album with shit title (///\\\.;';Y///?????)+ whateva else. Theres never been a shortage of things for people to talk about. MIA has been coping it on the intraweb from Pitchfork, Diplo, and everyone in between. So rather then adding to this seemingly one sided argument, I might just swing this post around to a bit of a lesson on suicide and how awesome they were...

In the early 70s Suicide were the very first band to use the words "punk music" to promote one of their concerts on a flyer. A word they took from celebrated music journalist guru Lester Bangs. Playing alongside bands like the New York Dolls and The Stooges, Suicide became very hated for their electronic, vintage synth, drum machine sounds, and minimal style that the world just wasnt really ready for, Getting booed off stage alot of the time and sometimes their concerts ending in riots. Listening to their albums today its very easy to see how important Suicide were. The term "influential" gets thrown around a fair bit i know but the term could not be any more fitting to Suicide with the following list of bands crediting suicide as a big influence: Panthére, Gang Gang Dance, The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Sisters of Mercy, She Wants Revenge, Henry Rollins, Joy Division/New Order, Soft Cell, Nick Cave, Cassandra Complex, Sigue Sigue Sputnik, Radiohead, Kap Bambino, Spacemen 3, Spiritualized, Michael Gira, Sonic Boom, Loop, The Fleshtones, Ric Ocasek of The Cars, R.E.M., The Kills, and Bruce Sprinsteen.

Nuff said.






I guess if ur tryin to get some street cred by hookin up with another artist, going with a "band's band" like Suicide is a pretty good choice. One thing is for certain though, she definatly knows how to get people talking. Just take this review by FourFour (the entire review is made up of about 41 other reviews, all hyperlinked of course)
(Ps why is it cool this year to release intentionally shithouse albums?)


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