Let's talk about the new Streets album A GRAND DON'T COME FOR FREE.

I mean I've not seen other critical darlings get constantly dubbed "emperors new clohtes" etc, is it because the praise for the UK garage crossover artists is really detailed or strong? Or do people just hate British accents! Or is it just that it's like a ghettoised scene hitting peoples promo piles or radars.

1. The British music press is really influential, so I think some people can't help but feel like a British artist is going to have an unfair advantage.

2. Some may feel that people in the press who champion the Streets didn't give the same daps to the people who influenced the Streets.

See, this is what I don't get most. The critical acclaim is easier to understand, but nothing on AGDCFF moves me in the way that most of OPM did. I really find a lot of it overly sentimental actually, really trite and heavy-handed, and the use of vernacular doesn't help. Probably the opposite actually.

I thought this would grow on me loads by now, but it's growing off me, partly because there's no novelty with the story any more.

Very good, but I didn't get that same feeling of "this is a classic" that I did with first play of OPM ... until the last two songs of course, which are utter brilliance.

Big question for me tho' is: will this stand up to repeated plays? (if that matters - I rarely cane any LP to death anyway, and especially not ones I rate very highly fo fear of getting bored with them). But relevant herew, because of the linking story. Yeah, I had a lump in my throat during "Dry Your Eyes" and at the end of "Empty Cans", but can't see that happening once familiarity sets in.

Oh I don't think it's cynical as such... it's just uncomfortably close to that hand-wringing drippiness of Coldplay (see: "Dry Your Eyes"). Very "look at ME!!! I am SENSITIVE!!!"

I think Diamanda Galás once said of a Trembling Blue Stars song "I just don't care about sensitive straight boys and their problems; just put a tampon on it." That's sort of what I feel here. It really distresses me that the same man who made OPM has now made something I can compare to Coldplay.

Don't you see. HE'S MIKE SKINNER!

MIKE SKINNER!

yes and he still whines that people are cunts to him. NO SHIT SHERLOCK.

x-post - Yeah, but that's only in one track and he spins that backwards and starts again because he knows he's being daft!

I think he's taken that chance without diluting his style really. In fact if anything, he's abandoned all convention in order to do this. Could you even say he attempts to rap, at any point on this record?

(xpost I hate the 'everyman' thing which has attacxhed itself to Mike Skinner. He reminds me of people I know != he is an everyman character)

This is obvious but it's a very homosocial record, and how straight or otherwise that is, is debatable. What Dan does to Mike is probably worse than what Simone does.

I do wish there was more C-Mone on this record, because she's great. I also wish they'd got C-Mone's former Out Da Ville colleague Tempa in because she'd have scared the living wotsits out of Mike (in the narrative and out, most likely).

I liked the rewind bit despite being aware (like Nick said upthread) of it being overblown and trite. "Be nice to people and they'll be nice to you" hardly a surprising or important conclusion but there's something naive about the rewinded part which gets to me.

(xpost obv)

It's not that Mike Skinner reminds me of people I know, it's that Mike Skinner is laying bare a lifestyle which pretty much EVERYONE I (and I'm sure others) is living or has lived at some point.

There's a sense of cartoon about it and that's why he's sort of at the top of the pile, or he can scream "Don't you all like pills" at his gigs, but he's become the figure he is because I can't think of many others who cram so much actual real life detail into records, and this rings true even more on AGDCFF if you ask me.

He's too confined by rhythm and rapping on the first record to actually drop lines like the one about his jeans feeling funny at the end of AGDCFF.

I know plenty of people for whom this lifestyle is pretty alien.

If anything it's saying that you are on your own, it's Skinner realising that you have your friends and that's fine but ultimately you must look after yourself, and you don't deserve attention or more shoulders to cry on than anyone else, because everybody else has to look after themselves too.

And at the same time there's a beauty to that because it's our diversity and the sense that we're all unique which prevents us from getting along, from true unity. Loneliness is also independence, difference, invention. Problems need solutions.

We actually got to talking about "Empty Cans" after a discussion of the Mayday protests, and I said I thought it was kind of tragic but almost beautiful hearing these spokespersons terrified to nail their colours to the mast, politically, because there was no real political thread uniting the protestors, just a general sense that "something is wrong", and in a way there's all these people on the streets who are unhappy but aren't actually united at all.

If anything to me that's an illustration of the problems in the world, that for them to go away or dissipate and for us to exist together peacefully we must cease to be individuals, or in a perfect world what would the point of there being a "you" or a "me" be.

I think Empty Cans really goes to the core of so many human issues. It's a massive song.

x-post, oops there should be a "know" there somewhere N, "everyone I know".

Skinner intends to up the political (small p) content of his next records, apparently. We could all be Streets-hatas in 12 months time.

Nick otherwise OTM on this thread.

This is my point! OPM flits between stuff which isn't believable or real and stuff which is, and so the stuff which IS real is magnified and - because it happens so unconsciously - is more affecting.

Whereas AGDCFF aims to be about life as much as about himself, but... it's too contrived, and N is right, that's not life for a lot of people.

(xposts)

Also - in OPM he's not trying to convey a sense of lifestyle so much, just details about life.

Yeah, I figured that. I was just saying that there are plenty of indiekids and regular straights who have no experience of the lifestyle Skinner depicts. I'm surprised you don't know any. It would be interesting to know if any of them would enjoy the Streets.

Skinner's lifestyle is alien to many people (me included) but it's the same emotions in different situations (at least partly). Plus many of his songs are funny - I don't think ppl would need to identify with them to enjoy them on this level. (although obv they'd "get" smth different from it)

(many xposts)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/regulars/ontherecord/story/0,12255,1210210,00.html

thanks to martian's page http://www.djmartian.blogspot.com not sure if it's come up yet but worthy of some debate on the new thread nontheless.

This needs to be released on DVD, with a video for every song.

The new album by The Streets album is called 'The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living' and is out on April 11th

i hadn't listened to it in forever, but i still love "empty cans." it warms my cold heart tbh.

"No one's really there fighting for you in the last garrison. No one except yourself that is; no one except you. You are the one who's got your back til the last deed's done." It's really awesome that he manages to make this sound sweet and hopeful rather than embittered and fucktheworld, imo

Mike Skinner OTM.

Oh god is this really nearly 10 years old??!

I have a distinct memory of going out to one of the best free parties on a Saturday night and picking this up from the record shop on my way home the next morning. It was a very good comedown album for that time - 'Blinded By The Lights' especially.

nooooooooooooo i refuse to believe it is 10 years old

the time that it came out was a fun and great time in my life

i do remember sitting at my computer crying tears of relief at "empty cans" tho lol

Yeah me too Rox, 2004 was a good year. Ah the olden days...

I don't think I've heard this since it came out, but I think I can be confident in saying that he never bettered it.

The delivery on this bit is the LOLziest...

You don't care about my broken TV
I sit on my sofa all day smoking weed
I never phoned that bloke from the TV company
So please don't be like this, please, please, please