The first time most Americans listen to the Streets, they have one of two reactions: laughter or embarrassment. I began as a laugher but have since become a cringer.
When I first heard the Streets' debut, "Original Pirate Material," in 2002, it was so strange to hear an MC with a Cockney accent that it took a few listens for the novelty to wear off. One-man-band Mike Skinner's delivery was somewhere in between rap and spoken word, and it was his Achilles heel -- the weak component of a musical style that incorporated strong beats and literate rhymes.
Skinner's lyrics on "Original Pirate Material" were verbose tales of working-class British life, populated by pot-smoking "geezers" and drunken "lager louts." The production was crisp, full of anthemic strings, live percussion and even the occasional horn section.
When the Streets' follow-up, "A Grand Don't Come For Free," dropped last week, many listeners were hoping for a step forward. Instead, they got a step sideways. Ostensibly a concept album in which our narrator loses and then finds 1,000, "A Grand" is in fact a sprawling mess of an album with moments of brilliance amidst many minutes' worth of embarrassment.
Mike Skinner doesn't describe himself as a rapper, but there really is no excuse for trying to rhyme "corner" with "saw her." In some ways, his slow, multi-tracked vocals recall an Eminem with no sense of rhyme or meter. In most cases, he sticks to a simple AABBCC rhyme scheme that does little to showcase any lyrical ingenuity he may have.
There are some highlights. When Skinner enlists guest vocalists to sing his choruses rather than trying to speak-sing them himself, the songs are moderately successful.
"Dry Your Eyes," for example, is a down-tempo ballad in which Skinner consoles himself after a harsh breakup. The lyrics are mostly pabulum ("Dry your eyes mate / I know it's hard to take but her mind has been made up / There's plenty more fish in the sea") and the main string theme may be blatantly cribbed from the Beach Boys' "God Only Knows," but at least it has a pleasant chorus.
That's more than can be said about "Get Out of My House," a nightmare of a track sort-of-rapped by a female guest, a grown woman who comes off sounding like a foul-mouthed nine-year-old boy.
As she trades verses with Skinner and they argue about a drug-addled relationship, the song is probably supposed to recall "The Irony of It All," one of the funnier songs from "Original Pirate Material," but the only laughter this one will inspire is directed at Skinner and his girl.
Some will defend this album based on the production, but the beats that seemed fresh in 2002 on "Original Pirate Material" haven't been updated much for 2004.
As a producer, Timbaland or the Neptunes (or even Nigel Goodrich, for that matter) could run circles around Skinner. He comes up with decent beats for songs like "Not Addicted" and first single "Fit But You Know It," a guitar-based foot-stomping highlight, but you've heard the chill-out beat in "Blinded By the Lights" a thousand times before in a thousand Eurodisco anthems.
I have to come clean and admit that I made little attempt to follow all the lyrical threads that run through the 50-plus minutes of music. I caught Skinner monotoning about a few breakups, several flirtations, the loss and recovery of the titular cash and extended, technical descriptions of a broken television ("Empty Cans").
Most of the songs are listenable enough by themselves, but never, even after many listens, did a comprehensive picture or a universal theme emerge out of the lyrical wreckage -- unlike classic concept albums such as The Who's "Tommy" or Radiohead's "OK Computer."
Mike Skinner clearly has considerable gifts as a songwriter. He just still hasn't figured out how to use them without becoming an embarrassment to himself, lyrically and musically. He knows he wants to do more than just rap about bling-bling; he wants to show us real life on England's streets. But until he figures out a more polished, less cringe-worthy way to do that, I guess I'll just have to remain in the dark.
