Album: A Grand Don't Come For Free
Artist: The Streets
Born: West Heath, Birmingham
Released: May 2004
Genre: Hip Hop
A hip hop concept album about the mundanity of everyday life doesn't sound all that musically promising, but somehow Mike Skinner made it work. As mentioned before on the blog, I encountered more than my fair share of UK garage music in my early 20s, in the pubs, bars and nightclubs of south London. In this context, the release of single Has It Come To This? in late 2001 was my introduction to the music of The Streets. I bought the group's first LP, Original Pirate Material, on the strength of this single and the good reviews, and found the whole thing refreshing. Skinner's genius was not trying to simply imitate his musical heroes like Q-Tip and Nas, but instead to mix their lyricism with elements of UK dance music, like 2-step and jungle, and to ground the songs in the minutiae of life in Britain. Along with Dizzee Rascal and Ms Dynamite, Skinner breathed new life into UK hip hop and had a particular genius for turning British slang into a convincing rap flow, swapping his "bitches" for "birds" and providing sharply observed insights into the life of a modern-day geezer. Original Pirate Material was also largely concerned with how stale UK music had become, with songs like Let's Push Things Forward seeking to break through the impasse. While The Streets' debut album is more interesting musically, I still marginally prefer the follow-up A Grand Don't Come For Free, for the quality of its songwriting and its narrative arc.
A Grand Don't Came For Free has a sparser production than the first Streets LP, allowing Skinner's everyday poetry to take centre stage. Opening track It Was Supposed To Be So Easy sets the scene immediately, in this case the life of a slightly feckless working-class geezer, who fails to complete a simple task like returning a DVD to a video store with the disc in its case (weird to muse on the pace of change in the past decade, the days of Blockbuster now a distant memory). The song has its funny moments, especially the scene at the ATM ("Get there the queue's outrageous / lady's taking ages / my rage is blowing gauges / how long's it take to validate your wages?"), a feeling many might sympathise with. Then the song ends with Skinner's character losing a grand (£1,000), which kicks off a cycle of events, including gambling (Not Addicted), relationship break-up (Get Out Of My House) and escaping on a lads' holiday (Fit But You Know It). In among all these events, are some tender love songs like Could Well Be In and Dry Your Eyes. One of my favourite tracks on the album is Blinded By The Lights, which highlights an issue for many young ravers taking ecstasy for the first time; namely, taking too much to increase the rush. Skinner brilliantly captures the paranoia of recreational drug-taking and that desire to seek oblivion at the weekend, in his words to get "mashed". I also really like the post-modern closing track Empty Cans, which offers two possible endings. Skinner would quickly lose his magic after this release, but his influence remains strong, as you can see in the work of Lily Allen, Plan B and Sleaford Mods, all distinctively British voices.
A hip hop concept album about the mundanity of everyday life doesn't sound all that musically promising, but somehow Mike Skinner made it work. As mentioned before on the blog, I encountered more than my fair share of UK garage music in my early 20s, in the pubs, bars and nightclubs of south London. In this context, the release of single Has It Come To This? in late 2001 was my introduction to the music of The Streets. I bought the group's first LP, Original Pirate Material, on the strength of this single and the good reviews, and found the whole thing refreshing. Skinner's genius was not trying to simply imitate his musical heroes like Q-Tip and Nas, but instead to mix their lyricism with elements of UK dance music, like 2-step and jungle, and to ground the songs in the minutiae of life in Britain. Along with Dizzee Rascal and Ms Dynamite, Skinner breathed new life into UK hip hop and had a particular genius for turning British slang into a convincing rap flow, swapping his "bitches" for "birds" and providing sharply observed insights into the life of a modern-day geezer. Original Pirate Material was also largely concerned with how stale UK music had become, with songs like Let's Push Things Forward seeking to break through the impasse. While The Streets' debut album is more interesting musically, I still marginally prefer the follow-up A Grand Don't Come For Free, for the quality of its songwriting and its narrative arc.
A Grand Don't Came For Free has a sparser production than the first Streets LP, allowing Skinner's everyday poetry to take centre stage. Opening track It Was Supposed To Be So Easy sets the scene immediately, in this case the life of a slightly feckless working-class geezer, who fails to complete a simple task like returning a DVD to a video store with the disc in its case (weird to muse on the pace of change in the past decade, the days of Blockbuster now a distant memory). The song has its funny moments, especially the scene at the ATM ("Get there the queue's outrageous / lady's taking ages / my rage is blowing gauges / how long's it take to validate your wages?"), a feeling many might sympathise with. Then the song ends with Skinner's character losing a grand (£1,000), which kicks off a cycle of events, including gambling (Not Addicted), relationship break-up (Get Out Of My House) and escaping on a lads' holiday (Fit But You Know It). In among all these events, are some tender love songs like Could Well Be In and Dry Your Eyes. One of my favourite tracks on the album is Blinded By The Lights, which highlights an issue for many young ravers taking ecstasy for the first time; namely, taking too much to increase the rush. Skinner brilliantly captures the paranoia of recreational drug-taking and that desire to seek oblivion at the weekend, in his words to get "mashed". I also really like the post-modern closing track Empty Cans, which offers two possible endings. Skinner would quickly lose his magic after this release, but his influence remains strong, as you can see in the work of Lily Allen, Plan B and Sleaford Mods, all distinctively British voices.
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