The Streets Albums (4)
What The Critics Say
By the end of the last Streets album, The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living, listeners and even most fans were ready for Mike Skinner to stop complaining about the perils of celebrity. Skinner sounded crass and cynical, utterly disgusted with his life and very bitter about what it had become. (In so doing, it proved that he's one of the most honest songwriters to ever step up to a microphone.) Everything Is Borrowed is a neat about-face, a record that couldn't be more different from its predecessor. Sincere, considered, and poignant, Everything Is Borrowed finds Skinner remaining one of the foremost lyricists in pop music, and so much the better when the focus of his sharp writing is the struggle of weighty concepts instead of flimsy celebrity. Skinner's characters in these parables are struggling, no doubt, but in the process they're also coming upon profound insights about life, death, and love, ranging from the slightly pithy ecology dance piece "The Way of the Dodo" all the way up to the struggle between good and evil in each person ("Heaven for the Weather," which reveals its odd title and its lyrical genius in the line "I want to go to heaven for the weather/But hell for the company"). The instrumentation, as well, is far more different than any previous Streets record. Although the drums don't always sound live, most of the time they are, courtesy of drummer Johnny "Drum Machine" Jenkins. Electric guitar and bass occupy a lot of space, along with the occasional strings and even brass. Nevertheless, since the instruments are wielded the same way that the synths were in the past, there's no radical change in format. Skinner still busies himself speaking most of the verses (often tripping over himself) and singing every chorus (usually off-key), as though he's stumbling upon every genius line, daft as they sometimes sound. He's just as stingy with his productions as he has been ever since the second Streets album, so those who ache for the crystalline production perfection of Original Pirate Material won't find much here to cling to. But singing (or speaking) words of wisdom like this certainly makes up for his gradual move away from the super-producer status he's enjoyed in the past. Suddenly optimistic, or at least philosophical, about life, Skinner catches lightning in the bottle for the third time, and makes it clear that once we're able to look back at the Streets discography -- Skinner has promised that this is the fourth of five -- it will be easy to see The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living much more simply, troubled and frustrating though it was, as a way to exorcise some of his darker demons, and make the journey to the light more invigorating. ~ John Bush, All Music Guide
'The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living'
Release Date 4/7/2006
Tracks 11
Label Pure Groove
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Apparently, success has spoiled Mike Skinner. It's a common problem among artists who are also working-class social critics: if they become successful, it's increasingly difficult to go back to the well when everything they've used for material changes drastically -- friends and lovers, home life, work life, and social life. The wallflower who could study his subjects for hours suddenly lacks for good material when he's the center of attention. Instead of attempting the charade of being a working-class chronicle, he's moved on to the types of problems that come with celebrity, including trashed hotel rooms ("I make these crap rap rhythms to pay the hotel bills that fund my passion"), isolation and loneliness ("I got nothing in my life away from the studio"), fake Streets hats ("Fake Streets Hats"), and the other vagaries of fame ("Camera phones -- how the hell am I supposed to be able to do a line in front of complete strangers, when I know they've all got cameras?"). So, are these Skinner's sincere reflections on his surroundings and an artistic statement he's proud of, or are they the result of a parodic persona he's assumed, with its requisite shroud of satire? That's a difficult question (despite Skinner's own assurances that he's sincere), primarily because of all the cynicism, paranoia, misanthropy, and betrayal on this record. Humility has been replaced by arrogance, reflection by anger, and humor by sullenness. The production has changed little from the last record -- hard-hitting, synth-based productions with minimalist melodies and tough, clanging percussion, except for the occasional piano-based ballad. Skinner's lyrics are striking and distinctive as before, but it's difficult to believe this is the same artist who confronted a stereotypical lager lout named Terry on his first album, a track titled "The Irony of It All." The irony here is that Skinner sounds more like the lout. ~ John Bush, All Music Guide
'Intonation Festival 2006'
Release Date 1/1/2006
Tracks 13
Label Connect
See Album Tracklist and Review
'A Grand Don't Come for Free'
Release Date 1/1/2004
Tracks 11
Label Vic
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Mike Skinner has a problem, and from the sound of it, it's life-threatening. He opens his second Streets full-length by moaning "It was supposed to be so easy..." as though he's about to deliver his deathbed confession, the classic tale of a crime gone wrong. Instead, three minutes later, it's clear what the "it" was: walking down to bring back a DVD rental, taking some money out of the machine, and calling his mother, who he'd just left at home, to tell her he wouldn't be back for tea. Believe it or not, but that's just another day in the life of Britain's favorite bedsit producer cum singer/songwriter. Although listeners may not wonder where he finds his material, they'll quickly realize that A Grand Don't Come for Free is just as immediately striking as Skinner's career-making full-length debut, Original Pirate Material. It succeeds, despite a clear lack of comparable singles, because of its paradoxical concept (and yes, it is a concept album) that a record can be tremendously ambitious even though it charts a very unambitious personality. Skinner's urban British youth persona is even more fully drawn than before, and this time he delivers a complete narrative in LP form, with characters, conflicts, themes, and post-modern resolution on the closer. He's sheepish about his utter lack of knowledge about football (and the heavy gambling losses that result from it), unreservedly enthusiastic about his girlfriend early on but later totally disgusted with her (in a blow-up that rivals Dizzee Rascal's "I Luv U"), not so easily dismissive of a gorgeous show-off in front of him at the kebab shop, and willing to confront anyone who criticizes him for drinking at home until he can set up a row of empty Tennent's Super cans. Fortunately, he hasn't reduced the Streets to a comedy act in the process. There is as much tragedy and heartbreak here as there is slapstick comedy. "Blinded by the Lights," driven at half-speed by a shadowy trance line and Skinner's disoriented delivery, transmits perfectly the intense loneliness that can flood you in a club full of people and the utter disenchantment of being stranded in the middle of euphoria. Skinner drives these tracks with a mere skeleton of productions and delivers some cruelly off-key harmonies on the choruses; only the single, a rockabilly buster named "Fit but You Know It," makes any attempt to connect the dots from beats to melody to production. Confronting doubts about his seriousness and squashing whispers about his talent, Skinner has made a sophomore record that expands on what distinguishes the Streets from any other act in music. ~ John Bush, All Music Guide
