The Streets
A Grand Don't Come For Free
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The Streets
A Grand Don't Come For Free
Vice, 2004
RiYL: Prodigy, MC Paul Barman, Dr. Octagon |
He cuts down on the chaff, expands musically, but retains, in his own lopsided Cockney anti-rapping, what made Pirate Material so compelling. With more fully developed production, album number two sounds much less like it was recorded in someone's mother's basement (as most of the first album actually was). A Grand Don't Come For Free is nominally a concept album, involving the rise and fall of a relationship, an envelope full of lost (drug?) money, and a broken TV, but it's the tracks that step a little bit out from under the format that really resonate.
The lurching "It Was Supposed To Be So Easy" begins the "concept" in perhaps too literal a style, as Skinner goes through the events of his day in excruciating detail. Sure, everyone's forgotten to put the DVD back in the case before returning it to the rental place before. However, I still haven't accepted cell phones at baseball games, let alone entire verses about them in rap songs. Repeated listens improve matters, as Skinner's tone-deaf football-chorus refrain perversely begins to become catchy.
"Could Well Be In" is one of the most innocent songs about chatting up a girl in a bar I've ever heard. It's also built around a strident, full sample that crosses over into pop territory Original Pirate Material seemed skittish around. Skinner has a remarkable talent for capturing real moments in his songwriting, as he does here where his eponymous protagnonist nervously peels the labels back on his beer bottles while the girl he's in conversation with takes a phone call.
The song touches on a lot of the odd things we say when we're trying to quickly reveal ourselves to someone we've just met but want to get to know better, as when the "bird" admits she was "the worst pool player under the sun / all the blokes take it easy on her, so she always won." The song is also commendable for its realism; rather than making an impossible ideal out of his new lady friend, Skinner explains he'd seen her before and not been much interested, but she looks much better out of her work clothes. Throughout the album, little touches like this make living, breathing humans out of Mike's characters, rather than the usual rap archetypes.
Throughout the album, Skinner remains defiantly British, rapping about ITV, cricket, and quid. Although his very English patois is something you have to get used to, slang has been a big part of rap music from its very beginning -- this is just a slightly different glossary. Unfortunately, his beats aren't always worthy of the rhymes he delivers over them, like the clunky "Not Addicted" (a song, by the way, about gambling and not drugs) and the out-of-date rave backbeat on "Blinded By The Lights" (which is about drugs). On the squabbling-couple ditty "Get Out Of My House," he duets with female British rapper C-Mone. Unfortunately, the effect is more Spice Girls than Beastie Boys, though Mike's confused, inarticulate babbling in the outro hits close to home.
Like a stage musical, A Grand Don't Come For Free suffers from weird pacing issues. Some of the songs move the plot forward rapidly, but others seem to be stuck in quicksand. "Such A Twat" and "What Is He Thinking?" don't serve much of a purpose here; the latter, with its low-rent No Limit backbeat and inept guest rapping by one of Skinner's mates, should have been left off entirely. However, just when you're ready to assume that Mike Skinner's shtick has worn out, something like the snappy punk rawk backing track for "Fit But You Know It" rears up and smacks you in the face.
Then there's the album's climax, two remarkable tracks that quite surpass everything The Streets have done before and point towards a bright future. "Dry Your Eyes" is a simultaneously heartbreaking and uplifting breakup song, with Skinner laying on both strings and acoustic guitar. The tune's oddly positive chorus makes for a terrific contrast with the verses' desperate pleas ("we can have an open relationship if that's what you want!"), and the song leaves the listener in just the right emotional place for the knockout of a closer.
"Empty Cans" is a real achievement in rap production. It's basically two separate songs, one with Skinner's protagonist bleakly railing against everyone and everything that put him in this state, then another after his outlook is changed by a twist of fate and a little help from a friend. The trick is the backing tracks for the first section seamlessly morph into the second, as the prospects for Skinner's character begin to look up. Just when he seems most nihilistic, a little bit of piano creeps in over the Gothic synths, and before you've even realized what's happening, Skinner, the backbeat, and the listener have all been taken to an entirely different place.
A Grand Don't Come For Free really earns its optimistic, full-circle ending, and even if the meat of the album doesn't quite match its first and last two tracks, the overall effect is impressive. Hopefully Skinner isn't going to break up "the band" for real this time, because The Streets seem to only be beginning to realize his potential.
MARK T.R. DONOHUE | Mark T.R. Donohue is a prolific freelance writer whose areas of expertise include Rockies baseball, video games, genre television, English soccer, and pub rock. He lives in Colorado, where he cultivates the largest and creepiest private collection of Alyson Hannigan memorabilia in the Mountain West.