M.I.A. releases “Bedroom To The Hallway To The Road To The World” to continue to make some kind of point?

M.I.A.’s latest album got panned pretty roundly, and in seemingly some kind of face-saving apology, the indie-rapper has been releasing a handful of new standalone tracks. The newest of said tracks, “Bedroom To The Hallway To The Road To The World,” is a sort of droning, typical M.I.A. b-side that honestly I think most people could do without. That’s not to say it’s a necessarily awful song, I just don’t exactly know why she needed to release it. But M.I.A. is M.I.A. and of course she released it at a ridiculous URL with accompanying weird images at bedroomtothehallwaytotheroadtotheworld.com.

Let’s get honest here. The most recent album was no Kala or Arular, but it wasn’t THAT bad. There were definitely some great tracks on it. “Born Free” and “XXXO” were both good singles and songs like “Steppin’ Up” and her cover “It Takes A Muscle” were fine b-sides. All in all it was far from a massive failure. So why does she feel the need to apologize (if it’s not intentional, it certainly comes off that way)? If she made something she liked and was proud of she should just own it.

What we need is a strong, confident, creative M.I.A., not a shameful, apologetic M.I.A. who is randomly releasing throw-away tracks like this. Hang on to them, work on them and make a better album next time. But M.I.A.? Don’t feel like you owe us anything.