OH NO! Jessica Callan doesn't like The Streets! OH NO!

I like the presumption that to have anti-drug views and to want to show up to awards ceremonies means you're worthy of music awards. It says so much.

I take it Ms. Callan is not highly regarded by many.

cor, she's down with the kids and everything!

godammit that entire article is a fucking disgrace, what an utterly clueless idiot of a hack.

oh my god what a fucking idiotic thing to say. still, the day i look to The Mirror for top tips on hot! new! tunes is the day i put a small ad in the classifieds saying "for sale - reputation; one careless owner".

One of life's great mysteries. Definitely the worst shit I heard all year.

And it's not just about being 'average', Ronan, it's worse. JC has a Fleet Street daddy - so handy for getting jobs these days. People also say that whenever a new 3am girl joins the Mirror (there are 3 of them at any given time, of which JC is the longest-serving) JC hounds them out using techniques familiar to anyone who's been to junior high. She was actually at one of the art openings I went to last night and I discovered something else about her, which is that she could put on the most expensive designer clothes it's possible to buy and no matter the effort or monety invested, clothes look like evil schmutter from H&M sale rail.

And meanwhile the rest of us omniscient scribblers remain financially handicapped by day jobs which drain our energy and enthusiasm, while dynasties of ignoramuses continue to spout stupidity (libellous stupidity at that, at one point, but I don't suppose the Mirror Group pension-robbing coffers are too worried about that) and make a fortune which they probably didn't even need. So much for "meritocracy."

she's pregnant you know

I was talking to another freelance journalist last night who was on a press trip with all of 3am, who were naff in the extreme due to phenomenon she called 'wearing' of dinky little mobile phones (gratuitous texting etc. with latest model just to make sure the one person who didn't see first showing-off has in fact been brought up to speed).

Nepo-hacks don't annoy me if they're good or unobtrusive; problem is every fuckwit who has columned/edited a section of a newspaper EVER seems to have one kid who's a journalist. Often when these are women, they'll be from 'broadsheet' families and will be horrible I Want A Pony types that remind other sozzled Fleet Street guys of their own daughters (if they don't already know the girl as friend of their own kids). If you're not one of these, good luck getting a foothold. Papers get more and more complacent and conservative when glorified office workers start thinking of themselves in dynastic terms.

A good friend of mine - judge's daughter, blonde, boarding school, brought up with media folk for neighbours, stints on broadsheet diaries, great degree, incisive questioner, brilliant writer, Royal and political connections - walked away from journalism last year because she was never in over seven years of writing offered a real staff job despite generating sections for newspapers, getting big scoops etc. Everything you're 'supposed' to do or be to be considered successful, she did or was. Who got the jobs my friend ought to have had? Some raving nepo every time, and often my friend was moved off pages/beats etc. to make way for someone given her duties as part of their cushy new job.

If I want to hear lazy-beat Brit-rap, give me Pitman ANY DAY.

I have loads of respect for her as a zine editor and lots of my friends are her friends too and I'm sure her column will be good - this week's was a waste of time tho cos it goes against what ought to be the first rule of music writing - talk about the stuff you do listen to not the stuff you don't.

The worst example of what Marcello and Suzy are talking about was when a teenage girl called Anna Stothard was given a column in the Observer to write about "teenage life". It was all utterly irrelevant to the lives of any teenager I've ever met, or have had any connection with, or will ever have any connection with me. IIRC, the Observer never deigned to mention that Anna Stothard was the daughter of one Peter Stothard, then editor of the Times.

haha...they overlooked the fact that just by being the daughter of a national broadsheet's editor and by being given your own column as a result, you cannot qualify as an 'ordinary teenager'

Well, I don't think the Streets is crap, but I do find the notion that OPM is the best album of 2002 to be intensely dubious. Personally, I would probably give it something like three out of four stars.

What's good about it? Well, it sounds relatively fresh- we haven't heard anything exactly like it before. While not exactly unprecedented in the annals of white-boy rap, Skinner's cadence is unusual, and his choice of backing tracks at least bears the imprint of a distinct sensibility. Furthermore, for all his bluster, Skinner still comes across as self-deprecating and down-to-earth, a charming raconteur who is capable of training a skeptical eye on his own foibles. Last, but certainly not least in the eyes of his backers, he claims to represent a subculture that has been under-represented in popular music up till now: the life of the "geezer". It is perhaps this claim of "authenticity" that most gets the critics' juices flowing.

So what's not too like? Well, the music, for starters. Forced to stand on their own, his backing "beats" show themselves to be unremarkable, somewhat flat and amateurish, which is the reason that he always sounds better in remix. Second, the delivery - for all its quirky charm, his delivery is congenitally flat-footed and rubbery. Like a stopped clock that shows the correct time twice a day, he occasionally finds the beat, but more often he bobs and wobbles around it. Finally, with a few notable exceptions, his lyrics have a tendency to fall back on empty bragging - with little of the wit that can transform bragging into an art form in the best rappers.

So does he suck? No. But there is a lot of room for improvement, and annointing him as the new savior of pop or hip-hop or whatever won't do him any favors if, as is likely, his sophomore attempt falls prey to unrealistically raised expectations.

Observer never deigned to mention that Anna Stothard was the daughter of one Peter Stothard, then editor of the Times.

No, they didn't. And she conforms to all I Want A Pony stereotypes: blonde, pretty, public school, access to social milieus even her dad doesn't have an entrée to, and on top of everything there's the sympathy vote because Daddy has/had cancer. However, she was at school with friend's little brother, was seen as arty/talented, and won every writing prize going while running school magazine. It's pretty clear there's a vocation there, no matter how angry-making that might make onlookers, and what 16-year-old who wants to be a writer is going to say no to a column in a REAL paper? Although when I tell you all she's got a deal for a novel I'm anticipating screams all the way from Darrrrrrrrrrrrrrset.

Please remember, whenever you see flagrant nepo-ing across papers that most editors are WHORES for chattering-classes contact and are keen to reduce degrees of separation between themselves and higher-ups whichever paper they work on. People with superior social connections are clearly going to get on because editors want them around so they can take credit for having someone at the same party as Aristo A or Schleb B (case in point - people who'd ignored me for ages workwise were very interested in anything I could 'give' them as a result of being at Larry Cl*rk's dinner/fight a few months ago). Thing is, like all forms of 'currency' it used to be considered vulgar to flaunt it and now it isn't.

all those flaws feel like advantages with The Streets sometimes...perhaps i'm just blinded by his spell too much, or maybe they just dont matter.

yes, that's it. I had a look at their section 2 just before i got out of the house.

''"Second, music for tots. Under this banner you'll find hip-hop..." I think is the sentence Julio is objecting to. Not even 'most' hip-hop, heh. The two hip-hop acts that get a mention later on come under "imaginative role models".''

I really objected to splitting US music to three categories.

''I have loads of respect for her as a zine editor and lots of my friends are her friends too and I'm sure her column will be good - this week's was a waste of time tho cos it goes against what ought to be the first rule of music writing - talk about the stuff you do listen to not the stuff you don't.''

yeah, I'll look at it I suppose. at least it should be better than david sinclair.

I don't really care much for the streets but it doesn't offend me.

you're always going to get things like this from people who think they know something...worst example of someone who thinks they know something=b1lly sl04n on scottish news progs.

Hah yeah fair enough, doesn't make it a good column though. But benefit of the doubt and all that - and better G O'H doing it than some, as you put it, nepo.

PLEASE tell me that "the Strebts" was just a typo. PLEASE!!

but it sure is hell ain't rap. I think the Wee Papa Girls had a better sense of rhythm. And in ten years he'll be just as forgotten as they are.

i prefer the originals to the remixes: "better beats" in this context is like reshooting "only fools and horses" with delboy in a porsche (some kinda guy ritchie piffle i guess)

somnambulism is a pretty good rhythm to talk abt non-central london in (hackney or peckham or white city or tottenham)

(actually i haven't been in tottenham for more then ten years so scratch that)

Presumably, his I AM THE SECOND COMING propaganda of the first track, which is implicit in "Let's Push Things Forward" too. It's perhaps more gusto than bluster.

hehehe...I bet it is!

The Streets rox u r all gay.

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Ma$e

Is the idea here that Skinner's "authenticity" as a geezer is enhanced by having weak beats backing him, or that such a backing somehow suits him better? This sounds like the return of the "slacker rock" hypothesis, in which musical sloppiness is seen as a virtue because it is harnessed to a gestalt which is all about laziness. Don't get me wrong: I'm not one who believes that technical proficiency is the be-all and end-all of music. In fact, I have many favorite records that were made by people who could barely play their instruments. However, the thing that strikes me about those records is that, for all their crudity, they still manage to sound effective and original. To me, the beats on OPM are rarely the first and hardly the latter.

It's very easy to give something a superficial listen and say, "Oh, those beats sound kind of half-assed, and this guy is talking about having no ambition - what a concept!". That's very different from saying, "At first those beats sound kind of half-assed, but the more I listen, the more I realize how they really work well with the words, etc." The first is essentially the trademark of a novelty act. The second is the characteristic of an album that will have real staying power. The question is which camp the Streets will fall into. As you've guessed by now, I suspect it will be the first.

i like the extreme lowkeyness of the whole thing, it entirely suits skinner's deadpan sense of humour anyway (MS finds the character/s he plays hilarious in his/their self-importance, but he's also fond of their and on theirside, and in sync with some of their semi-articulate pride and dignity, even when it comes out in competely daft ways and claims) (and some of that daftness flips elsewhere anyway, bcz the character isn't totally skew-whiff abt the originality of his odd self: "i'm 45th generation Roman", what a fkn GREAT line)

i don't know what "maybe his delivery will improve" means: sounds like the kind of thing steve martin or woody allen were being told — by their so-called friends or inner demons — when they switched the Early Funny Stuff for grown-up "real acting", and Work Which Enters the Ages.

proof that the streets = rap: "i live on snacks/potatoes in packs"

*the fall w.yvonne paulette fits into this category obv, and i think demolishes most of the anti-streets argts (poss.not trife's, but he's just wrong anyway here)

um, how many versions of this are there anyway?

(haven't heard a note from the streets BTW so feel free to ignore the q if its a stoopid one).

There are an infinite number of ways of programming a cheap-drum machine.

HTF does one dance to The Streets?

(NOTE: I still don't particularly like The Streets.)