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

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

A comfy house, ha ha. He had too many throw cushions to be genuinely working class.

She seems somewhat confused about the class issues she does or does not have problems with. Mike Skinner despite his slightly less than humble upbringings is no 'middle-class guiltnik'. So she assesses his honesty? Well isn't that the point of and why we love the record? Its masterfully delivered narrative? We can easily dispense with the amount of fabrication in the record because it is story, urban opera, spoken word or whatever. But something grounded in urban reality.

How many authors throughout history have represented a class from which they do not belong? This album transcends class in many ways. If there is a mass consensus about its relative greatness in the media then that stems from its universal themes and just how genuinely affecting it is for many people. Oxbridge educated or not. I think Caroline is foolish to completely disregard the album context and seems to have more disregard for the streets than The Streets.

I don't know that I'd call it "every man for himself" paranoia, though. If the final song represents two endings, I still consider the first to represent the kick in the head that he needed the entire album to realize what a fuck up he's been, both to his girlfriend (see track 5 for the explanation of their typical, comfortable and boring relationship) and to his friends re the money.
Considering everything that happens through the course of the album, it strikes me as more someone who knows they should have just buckled down and looked for the money, instead of immediately barking at their friends to figure out who is at fault. And I'm not sure that it's all every man for himself, cause the point with Scott and Dan is that Scott is just in the middle, and why should he sacrifice his friendship with Dan for Mike's sake. But the Mike in the album is a dick to everyone, not thinking about their motives, just feeling loads of self pity.
I'd say the second ending to Empty Cans is when he appears less paranoid, with a better perspective on the way things played out, and realizing he could have handled things far better than he did.

Having said all of this, I absolutely LOVE the album and the story.

I do think it's great / exceptional / marvellous etcetera in it's own right though.

I think the beat and the two different piano tracks make "Empty Cans" for me, and stop me having the same reservations about it as N does; the first part being foreboding and unavoidability, the second being a slowly unfurling sense of hope.

I think that maybe three or four tracks are, out of the context of the storyline, poor, or even very poor - "It Was Supposed To Be So Easy", "What Is He Thinking", "Such A Twat".

I think there are potentially quite a few singles though - "Not Addicted", "Dry Your Eyes", "Could Well Be In", "Wouldn't Have It Any Other Way". I think "Blinded By The Lights" is amazing, but not a single, likewise "Empty Cans".

I think his lyrics are good in the way that Mike Leigh scripts are good, which is a very different kind of good to the lyrics on OPM - fwiw I think i prefer the OPM take all in all, but there are certain bits of AGDCFF that are just astounding.

I think the more stripped production works very well in the context of what the album is, but I'm gutted that there's nothing really lush or banging or full. I listened to "Fit..." back to back with "Don't Mug Yourself" and "Fit..." sounded really weedy by comparison, likewise "Blinded By The Lights" and "Weak Become Heroes".

I hope this isn't the start of a narrative-album bandwagon.

I really want to hear what he's going to do next, and am slightly pissed that it's probably going to be two years until I do; the novelty of this almost makes it seem like a side-project. I hope he turns his gaze outwards slightly next, and also hits the dancefloor again.

I was waiting for someone (Caroline Sullivan is a perfect culprit) to decry Skinner for either being a class-tourist or else a misogynist. (I also think she's wrong re; it being the sound of vinyl spun backwards in "Empty Cans"; it sounds like a reel-to-reel tape to me, and the assertion that it must be vinyl posits it as a very masculine sound, all the connotations of audiophilia, collectorism, that anal 'record collector boy'/'comic store man' impotent, emotionally immature masculinity being a very cynical stick to shake at him - "silly little boys prefer records to women" etcetera etcetera).

I'm not sure it'll be a shoe-in for the Mercury - they can't have three ostensibly garage acts winning in a row, surely? Maybe Ivor Novello, given the narrative arc!

I don't live the lifestyle Skinner portrays at all, but there have been times when I almost have, and I've known plenty of other people who do.

haha *cough*.

ok, it's not strictly true that I have 'no experience of the lifestyle Skinner depicts', I suppose.

I'm finding that if you get bored with re-hearing the story, it's quite easy to zone out of the threaded episodic lyrics and enjoy the music.

Sir, you're not alone (again).

Reviewer: col from Cumbria, UK

This is absolutely shocking. First off I need to say I haven't heard the first Streets album, so this review is aimed at those similarly unfamiliar with this band/person/travesty.
Put simply - this is some of the most annoying music I have ever heard in my life. After a great write-up in Q magazine I was intrigued enough to give it a listen. OMG - It's like Ali G trying to get in touch with his sensitive side. Everything from the inane lyrics delivered in a 'Staines massive' accent to the teeth grindingly repetitive drum-beats made me want to break things.
Maybe I just don't 'get' this type of music, and I'm certain this album wasn't aimed at people with my particular tastes. Nevertheless, if this is urban music I'm pleased I live in the country.