As Lynn Hirschberg and M.I.A. exchange bitch slaps over the H-bomb’s portrayal of the, uh, songstress in a recent New York Times magazine piece (as well as M.I.A’s new response track), it seems the real issue is being totally ignored.

I mean, hello: Who cares if M.I.A. was portrayed as a mildly talented, wildly inelegant chick who lacks subtlety, street smarts and authenticity? The real controversy is crouched in a mild-mannered deep-fried starch package. That’s right, folks–M.I.A. ate truffle-flavored fries during their tete a tete and Hirschberg failed to truly highlight this jarring nugget of revelatory info.

As anyone worth their truffle salt knows, consuming truffle “flavoring” is analogous to wearing a knockoff Louis Vuitton handbag from Canal Street. Put simply, it’s aesthetically and morally offensive to self-respecting dandies.

Robert Sietsema summarizes the heinosity nicely in the Village Voice: “No one who has the slightest amount of taste would ever eat anything called a truffle-flavored French fry. They’re uniformly awful. Truffle-flavored fries are nearly always made with truffle oil, which is a synthetic compound, a chemical, not a natural substance.

(THE TROUBLE WITH TRUFFLES)

In less than 24 hours the fiercely debated video for the singer’s new single “Born Free” was pulled from YouTube due to excessive violent imagery. The Romain Gavras-directed video depicts military personnel rounding up redhead men and leading them to a desert-style execution. The video is still available at M.I.A.’s website, where nearly a million viewers have watched it.

Music fans had another bone to pick, as the song relies heavily on Suicide’s 1977 song “Ghost Rider.” The singer’s last big release “Paper Planes” also leaned on the Clash’s “Straight to Hell” for its catchy fame. Both were produced by Diplo and Switch.

M.I.A.’s political intentions have also been questioned as promotional. The Minneapolis City Pages called her latest work “Like an episode of ‘24,’” while the New York Times examined her connection to the Tamil Tiger rebels last year.

The singer revealed the track list for her as-yet untitled album yesterday via Twitter.

While Lady Gaga and Regina Spektor have recently snagged the Stateside mantle of edgy, left-of-center female vocalists making notable waves on the mainstream charts, in the UK that honor is split in fifteen different directions among an impressive cadre of gifted young women: Little Boots, Elly Jackson (La Roux), Lily Allen, M.I.A., Florence Welch of Florence and the Machine and more. Another distinctive voice in the UK’s long line of idiosyncratic singers is Polly Scattergood who, along with willowy powerhouse Natasha Kahn of Bat for Lashes, follows in the more unpredictable footsteps of dramatic forebears like Tori Amos or Beth Gibbons of Portishead.

Scattergood’s self-titled debut, which dropped in the States earlier this spring, skitters from fragile confessional asides to abrasive challenges that are as blunt as a Sylvia Plath verse. Though there’s a breathy, girlish piquancy to her voice, Scattergood, 22, utilizes it with precocious confidence, hurtling from ebullient pop gems (“Please Don’t Touch”) to eviscerated lullabies (“Poem Song”) to heart-on-my-bloody-fucking-sleeve anthems (“Unforgiving Arms”).

Whittled down from an estimated 800 songs that Scattergood has written since her early teens, there’s a distorted, cinematic texture to the ten songs on the debut, a quality that Scattergood told Uncensored Interview, via email, likely reflects how her peripatetic mind works, awash with fragments of music, film and art that she’s encountered. She cites influences as diverse as This is England director Shane Meadows (“I love the lighting he uses”) and Leonard Cohen.

“I see things that inspire me to write,” says Scattergood, “and sometimes I write things that spark off images in my head. I love artists like Gregory Crewdson. People often say his images have a very cinematic quality to them; they are certainly very dark and surreal. My dream is to score a film. I would love to work on any Meadows film…I also love the work of Tim Burton and David Lynch.”

The daughter of an actor and visual artist, Scattergood, who grew up in Wivenhoe, Essex, attended London’s acclaimed Brit School in Croyden, known for producing ambitious alumni like Kate Nash, Adele, Amy Winehouse, the Kooks’ Luke Pritchard and Leona Lewis. Scattergood admits to being an outsider in that milieu. On her own since 16 years old and supporting herself with odd jobs, she applied to the Brit School when, unable to read music, she was turned down by her local sixth form college.

“The Brit School is a free school [and they didn’t care] if I could or couldn’t read music,” Scattergood explained. “They just want to see a passion for music, and I had that, so I got in. I found it an interesting experience. I enjoyed being around other creative people, and I made full use of having access to a piano and other instruments. I didn’t totally fit in, as writing was where my heart was.”

(MORE GOODS ON POLLY HERE)

The Coachella Music and Arts Festival in Indio, California kicks off today, so if you’re headed there chances are you’re stuck in traffic right now with thousands of other excited music fans. Fear not, the end result will be worth it.

Coachella is known for packing in some huge names alongside some of the best up-and-coming artists, and this year is no exception. Paul McCartney, Morrissey, The Killers, M.I.A., The Cure, My Bloody Valentine and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs should keep you plenty busy. But be sure to set aside some time for arguably lesser known acts like Silversun Pickups, Girl Talk, Molotov, Fleet Foxes, Mastodon, Glasvegas, Antony & The Johnsons, Lykke Li, Vivian Girls and Supermayer.

If you’ve never been before, get the lowdown from locals here. There are plenty of helpful hints for surviving all the great and not so great things about a huge festival like this one. And stay up to the minute with Twitter.

And iPhone lovers, of course there’s an app just for you. The official Coachella app includes set times, a custom scheduler, venue map, friend finder and a photo uploader. As if it could be any more convenient, it’s also free!

Last but not least, drink plenty of water. The desert ain’t no joke. And don’t forget to bring sunscreen, sunglasses and earplugs (especially for My Bloody Valentine).

Feeling lost on the murky road of life?  Well, get out and stretch your legs at the weekly rest stop known as Sound Advice.

There’s a great Mitch Hedberg joke:  “I was walking down the street with my friend and he said ‘I hear music,’ as though there’s any other way to take it in.  ’You’re not special. That’s how I receive it too…I tried to taste it, but it did not work.”

You know when you’re trying to explain something to someone and they reply with, “I see what you’re saying”? You think, “No, you don’t see what I’m saying, you hear it.”

Well, maybe we can all be right.

The interesting thing is that maybe you can’t taste music Mitch, but some people, like Ida Maria, can actually see music.  She actually can see what you’re saying.  She has a neurological phenomenon called “synesthesia,” one form of which allows the synesthete to see sounds as colors and shapes.  I’m sure it makes communication difficult when she attempts to tell someone to play a song in the key of turquoise.

This is the thing about humans–we have many common experiences but all of our stories are different and wrought with individual burdens and obstacles that aren’t always obvious. Here, Ida Maria asks for a little compassion on behalf of M.I.A.

Let’s just all try to have a little more compassion for our fellow man or woman.  The next time you’re about to get angry at someone maybe you can just lick them first and see if they taste like they’ve been having a bad day.

Juno Awards, what? We stopped thinking about them shortly after everyone began taking serious Grammys bets over the weekend. Namely: would nominee and scheduled performer Maya Arulpragasam, better known as Sri Lankan rapper M.I.A., give birth before she made it to the stage? Or, um, would her water break on stage? The red carpet, perhaps? Her due date was Sunday night, so, clearly, anything was possible!

Well, she rocked out preg and nothing happened, not surprisingly. But, as luck would have it, M.I.A. wasn’t about to appear without bringing on some dramz. So now, instead of dishing about her potential-to-pop-on-stage, the only thing anyone wants to discuss about the “Paper Planes” singer is the dress she sported on the red carpet, which makes her look like a cross between a Japanese Lolita, a piñata and a Magic Eye book. She is going to be the coolest mom ever.

Just ask Zap Mama, who says M.I.A. reminds her of when she was seventeen.

Did anyone watch the Golden Globes the other night? No? Me neither, but I guess this starts the “Oscar season.” I haven’t seen too many movies this year, so I feel a little out of the loop. Though after finally browsing the Globe nominees (and winners) this morning, I realized that my predictions are probably just about as good as anyone else’s!

The Dark Knight
Under normal circumstances, an action film based on a comic book wouldn’t stand a chance at the Oscars. However, this film also happens to be the number two highest-grossing film of all time featuring the final performance of a beloved actor who suffered a tragic death. It’s a game-changer that will pull off a few noms: Best Supporting Actor, some technical awards and maybe even Best Picture.

Tropic Thunder
Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Cruise both scored Best Supporting Actor nominations for Tropic Thunder. Comedies are often decried by the Oscars, and this film may be a little too slapstick for the academy, but if there’s an off-chance it’d be great to see the dude playing the dude disguised as the other dude score the award.

(KEEP READING OSCAR BUZZ)