It's too Late by The Streets

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Surely a classic. More than anything else on the album, it documents the griminess and ordinary drudge of life. Killing a decent relationship because someone was late is something we've all done, plus the song hints at all the things that have gone on under the surface - and the final couple of lines are pure class.

But I've heard this track roundly slated - anyone know why? I can't see the faults myself, but I wanna know why some people simply detest it.

― Johnney B (Johnney B), Tuesday, 21 January 2003 15:43 (twenty-three years ago)

its the best track on the album. it reminds me of Hood actually...

― gareth (gareth), Tuesday, 21 January 2003 15:50 (twenty-three years ago)

spot on gareth, there is a real "post rock" thing unintentionally lurking underneath the surface. beautiful loops, beautiful vocals. i find OPM to be a bit consistent but "too late" gives a much needed breath of coolness in the second half of the album.

― fields of salmon (fieldsofsalmon), Tuesday, 21 January 2003 15:55 (twenty-three years ago)

It makes my body twitch in ways it's never twitched before. It's a stunning song, in my humble opinion.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 21 January 2003 15:56 (twenty-three years ago)

First song on the record to grab me, with the sloppy genius-oops orchestra loops, but also the first I got sick of. The Royksopp remix of "Weak Become Heroes" should appear in any future film set in England in 2002. For me that's the pinnacle of Skinner's emo take on hip-hop.

― Chris Ott (Chris Ott), Tuesday, 21 January 2003 15:58 (twenty-three years ago)

yeah, this was my ticket into the album as well

― Honda (Honda), Tuesday, 21 January 2003 16:01 (twenty-three years ago)

"emo hip hop" startlingly accurate IMHO. never thought of it that way before.

― fields of salmon (fieldsofsalmon), Tuesday, 21 January 2003 16:01 (twenty-three years ago)

I must be the only person in the world who thinks The Streets is overrated.

― die9o (dhadis), Tuesday, 21 January 2003 16:16 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't think you ARE the only person in the world to think SKinner over-rated - but why? I can't understand how it could be DISliked, to be honest.

― Johnney B (Johnney B), Tuesday, 21 January 2003 16:21 (twenty-three years ago)

Ah, someone somewhere will always hate something. The track is an utter classic, just because it seems an incredibly "mature" (not the word I want but it'll do) song in comparison with the rest of the album. The repetition of the line "Never again am I gonna be late" is heartbreaking.

― Lynskey (Lynskey), Tuesday, 21 January 2003 16:31 (twenty-three years ago)

and its the new single (WHAT, ANOTHER ONE?! OH ALRIGHT THEN...)!!!

― stevem (blueski), Tuesday, 21 January 2003 16:33 (twenty-three years ago)

I can't understand how it could be DISliked, to be honest.

Funny how taste works like that. This world would be so boring if everyone all liked and appreciated all the same stuff.

I'm with D!390.

― hstencil, Tuesday, 21 January 2003 16:34 (twenty-three years ago)

I must be the only person in the world who thinks The Streets is overrated

No, there are others. Check this thread.

― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 21 January 2003 16:35 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't like the singing on this track. It's musically awesome but why does Skinner get so much cred for doing something Damon Albarn got slated for seven years ago?

― dog latin (dog latin), Tuesday, 21 January 2003 18:26 (twenty-three years ago)

WHY I DON'T LIKE THE STREETS:

- I'm not convinced by the beats.
- I'm not convinced by the rhymes.
- I'm not convinced by the voice.

It's kind of like comparing someone spending time recording in their basement to create something cool and impressive (Daniel Bedingfield) to someone spending time recording in their basement to create the foundation of something that could be cool and impressive (The Streets).

(I don't know if Skinner did actually record in his basement.)

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 21 January 2003 18:57 (twenty-three years ago)

doing something Damon Albarn got slated for seven years ago?

cos Skinner is a REAL STREET GEEZER whereas Albarn was just a wannabe, heheheh

now will all u Streetz-hataz just sod off already? you're not gonna change our minds and no-one cares whats on yours...there's a war on you know

― stevem (blueski), Tuesday, 21 January 2003 19:27 (twenty-three years ago)

i kid cos i love

― stevem (blueski), Tuesday, 21 January 2003 19:28 (twenty-three years ago)

it's probably my favourite on the album along with 'has it come to this?' but i'm still not convinced abt his vocal on the chorus. hmmm. i *do* think it adds an air of vulnerability so, yeah, it works. i convinced myself!

― michael wells (michael w.), Tuesday, 21 January 2003 19:32 (twenty-three years ago)

Is it him doing the falsetto on the chorus? It really sounds like a woman. The track reminds me of a Specials song that I can't remember the name of when the lead singer does a duet with some woman with a terrible cockney accent. I think that's why I don't like that song. My faves are the comedy tracks like "The Irony of it All" and "Too Much Brandy".

― dog latin (dog latin), Tuesday, 21 January 2003 19:59 (twenty-three years ago)

Classic, definitely - the most moving track on the album, I think.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 21 January 2003 20:01 (twenty-three years ago)

someone spending time recording in their basement to create something cool and impressive (Daniel Bedingfield)

Let me second that, now that the review is finally up. I do like the Streets but I think I'd probably want to listen to Beddingfield more in the end.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 21 January 2003 20:14 (twenty-three years ago)

this song makes me cry

― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 21 January 2003 21:09 (twenty-three years ago)

Bedingfield makes me cry, but not in the RIGHT way

― stevem (blueski), Tuesday, 21 January 2003 21:11 (twenty-three years ago)

classic; but stay positive is better. mind you stay positive = one of the best things ever, so that's not saying too much.

(i'd prob like it's too late more (and i like it a lot anyway) if it weren't for having heard the promo version with the crappy background vocals first.)

― toby (tsg20), Tuesday, 21 January 2003 22:58 (twenty-three years ago)

just listened to it again and gareth's otm re: hood.

― toby (tsg20), Tuesday, 21 January 2003 23:01 (twenty-three years ago)

definitely the best song musically (hood reference is indeed otm), but the chorus (like all of his sung ones) is totally house generic crap. Plus you don't really learn that much about his relationship. Like, why is he late? Why doesn't he just call her later if she wasn't there waiting for him. Ehhh...either you like him or you don't I guess. Is there anyone besides me who wishes he'd hook up with a real musical songwriter? Somebody who knows how songs can add and remove elements rather than just looping repeatedly.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 21 January 2003 23:25 (twenty-three years ago)

Is there anyone besides me who wishes he'd hook up with a real musical songwriter?

The truth is out! Anthony's a rockist. ;-)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 21 January 2003 23:27 (twenty-three years ago)

Skinner's ignorance in such areas might be the real attraction tho..do you really want him to learn how to write 'proper' or 'better' songs? i suspect he'd lose just as much, if not more, as he'd gain that way - and so would we.

― stevem (blueski), Tuesday, 21 January 2003 23:59 (twenty-three years ago)

Still, I'd like him to team up with Royksopp to do a whole album.

― Siegbran (eofor), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 10:49 (twenty-three years ago)

*sigh*

― Cozen (Cozen), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 13:26 (twenty-three years ago)

this song is shit
streets are shit
real street geezer? he was brought up on a fairly normal barret homes estate in birmingham, but oh he goes to raves, does drugs, plays N64-OOH HARDCORE

― gi66y, Wednesday, 22 January 2003 13:59 (twenty-three years ago)

Emo?! Post-rock? What are you all talking about?

I want to hear a big HI-NRG trance version based around the string loop from It's Too Late. That would rule.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 14:03 (twenty-three years ago)

the chorus (like all of his sung ones) is totally house generic crap

Do you mean Skinner's choruses are like generic house ones? As in house music? Or is this some phrase or something. If you do mean that it's a bit of a wildly inaccurate criticism, he's male for a start etc etc etc.

― Ronan (Ronan), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 14:09 (twenty-three years ago)

he means it like "house wine" doesn't he?

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 14:19 (twenty-three years ago)

i mean, the entire anti-line consists of "this will grate on the palate of any discerning connoisseur", with the tremendous clang of every possible point being missed echoing in the background

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 14:25 (twenty-three years ago)

he was brought up on a fairly normal barret homes estate in birmingham, but oh he goes to raves, does drugs, plays N64-OOH HARDCORE

YES EXACTLY!

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 14:35 (twenty-three years ago)

This is the problem with Dom Passantino's whole bizarre argument about him being some kind of prole-culture slumming-it fiction for middle-class boys to empathise with - he doesn't come over as proley at all and he doesn't claim that; the one thing he does claim about himself is that he's a normal bloke and there's nothing on the record to indicate that's not true. Middle-class people like me like Skinner because he does mostly the same stuff as we do or used to.

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 14:38 (twenty-three years ago)

yeh, but Skinner doesnt strike me as particularly middle-class...unlike say, Damon Albarn perhaps.

― stevem (blueski), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 14:40 (twenty-three years ago)

I mean dislike him for being banal by all means but not for him claiming to be something he doesn't.

What class Skinner is is kind of irrelevant - society is not 'classless' but the areas of consumption Skinner's rhyming about more or less are; raving, smoking weed, getting pissed, arsing about with mates, worrying over girls, trying to stay out of trouble - there's nothing specifically working or middle class about any of these. In market research parlance Skinner's talking about a lifestage, not a social classification. Skinner treats class as a caricature anyway, cf. "The Irony Of It All" which is his least successful track.

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 14:44 (twenty-three years ago)

i agree that class is not relevant...it irks me that some critics use the 'middle class midlands bloke slumming it in sarf london' thing

'Irony Of It All' is one of the highlights of OPM for me...maybe its too 'obvious' - then again, i've never heard something like that on an actual album before (only in the pub, heh) - and the video is still brilliant, Streets DVD please

― stevem (blueski), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 14:51 (twenty-three years ago)

what's the deal abt being middle class: everybody fakes it! its in the job description.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 14:55 (twenty-three years ago)

yea, tom is correct. i dont understand doms argument about him being faux-ghetto/working class or whatever, i had never thought of it like that. one thing that dance music has done in this country has erode class boundaries in going out, its 'everyman' rather than 'geezer prole'. most young people out there live a life something along these lines, it hardly purports to be the life of towerblock crackheads does it? all the things mentioned by skinner ARE DONE BY SUBURBAN BARRETT HOUSE people! thats like the whole schtick!

this is why the uk eminem thing totally does not work. for a start the ouevres are different, hip hop and dance music are not the same culturally by any stretch of the imagination (the fact the streets is basically an indie record doesnt detract from this argument, the schtick holds)

― gareth (gareth), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 15:37 (twenty-three years ago)

"it's a novelty record" = "it is music made by non-americans"

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 15:41 (twenty-three years ago)

What's the opposite of novelty?

― Tim (Tim), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 15:43 (twenty-three years ago)

Haha we should start referring to more records as "routine records"

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 15:45 (twenty-three years ago)

dom is obv real working class HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

― zemko (bob), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 15:52 (twenty-three years ago)

i am a martyr to Routine Guilt

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 15:53 (twenty-three years ago)

Well....any band with the balls to pull off a Carole King cover are classic in my book.

― Rommel Cox, Wednesday, 22 January 2003 15:57 (twenty-three years ago)

I understand the "slumming it fiction for middle class boys" critique. Certainly Original Pirate Material has taken on an audience that I don't think Skinner thought would even be interested. From national newspaper columnists to Pitchfork hacks, The Streets really caught on in a big way with North American journalists (but hardly made a blip among record buyers). Can Original Pirate Material then be called a "fiction"? A lot of people listened to this record last year and most found it interesting for what it is -- I think most of the American hip hop in 2002 was far more "class escapist".

It would be valuable to remember that the British definition of "Middle Class" is quite different from the North American one, there's a great ILE thread on this but I'm too lazy to dig it up.

What Mike Skinner has done (also unintentionally) is do more to advance the cause of Anglophilic North Americans (and likely Anglophiles on all continents) than Morrissey, Damon Albarn and all the other Brits who have attained status in other places partially due to their incontrovertible Britishness. Most of the North American journalists who picked up on Original Pirate Material do get kind of a laugh out of it in an Austin Powers sort of way, but speaking as a Canadian who resided for a time in England and visits as often as possible, I like Original Pirate Material because it's a dead-on portrait of the people I lived with, worked with, drank with, rode the train with (etc.) while I was there. I know it's been said before, but Skinner could be anybody.

― fields of salmon (fieldsofsalmon), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 16:08 (twenty-three years ago)

yep, and what annoys a lot of people about that is 'why are you praising this ordinariness SO MUCH if it IS indeed so ordinary?' which is kinda valid - sure Skinner may be over-hyped, so is anything good in these desperate times...perhaps because there's so much more choice now we feel we have to stress what we deem to be quality too much and make ourselves feel heard in a very crowded arena of artists, media AND audiences

― stevem (blueski), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 16:25 (twenty-three years ago)

"desperate times"??

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 16:26 (twenty-three years ago)

Hey, Tom, I wouldn't want to be anywhere within a thousand miles of Baghdad right about now, for instance.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 17:15 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm not convinced that he is overhyped. We may find that he has said all that he has to say with this first album, or that more glossy professionalism loses the natural feel or something, but I think on the basis of all we have so far that he's a real major talent.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 20:49 (twenty-three years ago)

"we met through a shared view/she loved me and i did too"

instant classic, if only for that line.

― colin mcelligatt, Wednesday, 22 January 2003 22:05 (twenty-three years ago)

desperate times are exciting times ;)

― stevem (blueski), Wednesday, 22 January 2003 22:54 (twenty-three years ago)

seven years pass...

This came on shuffle today and is still utterly great.

Was there an early mix of this with a totally different chorus though? I'm sure I used to have one but if so I don't any more... am I going nuts?!

― sktsh, Thursday, 20 January 2011 00:18 (fifteen years ago)

The original version which leaked prior to the album, and which I'd love to obtain again (i've lost it as well), had a sampled female (R&B presumably) vocal in place of a chorus, singing IIRC "looking for something, it's too late... won't you be a man?!?"

Much better than the ultimately super-corny chorus Skinner ultimately replaced it with. I assume it was a sample they didn't get clearance for.

To reiterate: would love to get a hold of this version again.

― Tim F, Thursday, 20 January 2011 03:06 (fifteen years ago)

the version I have goes "WHO CARES for some DAY and it's too late. / WOULD YA BEEE THEREEE? WOULD YA BEEE THEREEEEE???"

― Mr. Snrub, Thursday, 20 January 2011 11:53 (fifteen years ago)

YES! Tim that's the one I had too!

― sktsh, Thursday, 20 January 2011 13:59 (fifteen years ago)

so the streets have a new album being released in feburary. it's skinner's last album as the streets. it's "influenced by the future."

― Daniel, Esq., Thursday, 20 January 2011 14:05 (fifteen years ago)

Atrocious title.

― Matt DC, Thursday, 20 January 2011 14:07 (fifteen years ago)

The Streets' album trajectory mimics Oasis's, except amplifies it.

― Bernard V. O'Hare (dog latin), Thursday, 20 January 2011 14:25 (fifteen years ago)

Except he was good to begin with.

― Rejoice that you weren't eaten (chap), Thursday, 20 January 2011 16:59 (fifteen years ago)

Anyway, It's Too Late is at least ten times better than Dry Your Eyes.

― Rejoice that you weren't eaten (chap), Thursday, 20 January 2011 17:01 (fifteen years ago)

prefer 'fool in the rain'

― *gets the power* (deej), Thursday, 20 January 2011 17:01 (fifteen years ago)

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It's too Late by The Streets - Classic or Dud?