Wednesday, April 12, 2006

The Trials & Tribulations of Mike Skinner

when you try to pull a girl
who is also famous too
it feels just like when you wasn't famous

um, yeah. Rough life Mike.

So you were at some posh do tryna have a chat with Keira and she slags you off it's because-
a) she's famous
or
b) you're a hamster-looking geezer with a permascowl and ill pullovers (www.igotstagetspaid.blogspot.com)

So, the new Streets album was realeased here in Europe last Friday. Just so happened I as on a rest day and chilling in the centrum with Florian so I gots me a copy.

Now, you'll know that I've been pretty big on The Streets in past, so I'm probably not gonna be too rough on Mr Skinner's 3rd full-length The Hardest Way to Make and Easy Living. But here's the deal - I don't find it quite as thrilling as Original Pirate Material or A Grand Don't Come for Free. Where Pirate Mat'l was chock full of raw beats, tough witty lyrics and grit, and A Grand was a brillo "concept album" (fuck I hate that term) detailing both the shitty and good times of city life, Hardest Way seems lacking somehow. I might have to give it a few more times around before I pass full judgement on it, but on first listen I found myself hitting the ffd to bypass tracks that were devoid of both a dope beat and clever lyrics. That's not a good sign. The production work is getting too clean, almost over produced, and some of the lyrics try to get a little too deep. Mike's at his best banging out rough beats and chatting about random day-to-day bullshit, not tackling issues. OK, so ask me in a week what's up with the Streets.

Standout tracks:
can't con an honest john - classic(ish) Streets beat-work
when you wasn't famous - funny as shit, club mix frenzy for sure (you heard it here 1st)

Sadly, it's a good thing that this disc tops out at 37 minutes. Another way to look at it is that if I had to pick tracks to play in a club, there's only be 2 or 3 out of the eleven on here. Bummer.

Apologies (and props) to my man MattP for some ideas I ripped off for this piece; I miss hanging out with that cat a lot.
www.igotstagetspaid.blogspot.com
www.skidrow.biz

GR

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