Send "The Streets " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Musicomh |
 Mike Skinner - the self-proclaimed "Picasso of geezer garage" - has always been a tough artist to get a handle on. Never sitting comfortably in one genre, the Birmingham-born producer/singer seems to straddle a line of his own creation.Much too witty and intelligent to be lumped in with the current trend of mediocre chroniclers of suburban life, Skinner's lazy, cultured delivery has never been seen as edgy enough to stand him alongside the blistering exponents of the grime scene like Kano and Sway. His albums, too, seem to stay one step to the side of the chasing pack. His first, the Mercury-nominated Original Pirate Material, tore the moribund UK Garage scene to pieces and reconstructed it in Skinner's own image - that of a young 20-something clubber disillusioned with the absolute bilge released by the likes of the Artful Dodger. Then, just as his breakthrough second album, the month-in-the-life geezer concept album A Grand Don't Come For Free, had the nascent East London rock scene desperately scrabbling for kitchen sink metaphors, he released The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living, a coruscating and at times thoroughly unpleasant look at his own tragic inability to deal with stardom....full text |
| Nme |
| One of the only things more nauseating than being gabbled at by a drug abuser about the deep, neverending possibilites of life is being lectured by a reformed drug abuser about the deep, neverending mysteries of life. The thing about drugs (or drinking, or being a promiscuous sleazebag, or whatever)is that it’s all so specific to the person – dependent on age, state of mind, tolerance… of course in general they’re all bad, destructive, ultimately empty experiences. Everyone knows that. But at the right time of life, excess can be fun, and doing fun stuff is life-enhancing. It’s so easy to reflect on one’s own bad days, decide that in the end nothing was gained and urge those younger than you to get into yoga rather than cocaine. Easy, but also boring, unfair, hypocritical and pointless....full text |
| Guardian |
| So attuned to life's tragicomic nature that even a visit to the dentist gets him philosophising (see his MySpace blog), Mike Skinner vents his most sentimental feelings on his fourth album. It works much more satisfactorily than the tone he adopted on the Streets' previous release, The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living, wherein fame was messing with his head. The broadly positive Everything Is Borrowed is about the simple things: making the most of life while he's here (the symphonic title track), fancying the latest unattainable girl to cross his radar (the funky Never Give In), deciding that the everyday grind is preferable to ending it all at Beachy Head (On the Edge of a Cliff). Each song functions like a small play, with Skinner inhabiting every deadpan but eloquent character and being chronically unable to resist gags. Each listen reveals more light and shade, reaffirming Skinner's position as one of Britain's truly interesting stars....full text |
The Streets lyrics
