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doesn't immediately reach out and sock you in the ballz. It took me a couple of years to catch up to it. This album rules. It sounds like he's tired of doing lines with crack-smoking MTV pop stars. But now I realize it's one of those albums I'm going to listen to for a long time. It's not as "grimey" or loud and arresting as you'd exepct. maybe because everyone has camera phones. oh well, sometimes you just have to get it outta your system.
As usual he keeps you entertained with his witty lyrics and storytelling abilities. Everything is borrowed is my favorite The Streets album to date. Very catchy and bouncy. Very nice album to start with if you're not familiar with The Streets. Pretty universal for the most part.
Mike is growing up in this one. I think, for listening, head banging pleasure, this album deserves only three stars. This is Album is the logical next step on coming of age story that he's been putting together with the last three. There are a few songs on here that are amazing, some others not quite so much. I gave it four because of how it fit's in to Mike's self documentarian style. It's very uplifting and possitive, which I personally appreciate more than teenage angsty drivel.
I mean, Like with every Streets CD, I loved it.But, this wasn't a great note to end on.I want him to continue producing and not start films.
In Mike Skinner, AKA the Streets,' online commentary about making this album he implies that he made a conscious decision to omit any lyrics on the album that reference modern life.So anyone hoping for a follow-up to "Original Pirate Material" and its cinematic tales of contemporary squalor will be disappointed by this album by default.But that doesn't mean that his experiment in wordplay, just like his interwoven stories on "A Grand Don't Come for Free," aren't a very worthwhile addition to this artist's music. Skinner is worth keeping tabs on.Streets albums are fun because they are basically party records that can be interpreted on various levels. On one level there are the big sloppy choruses meant to be sung along by sloshed people and then there are the little verbal tangents (ballsy hip-hop inflected poetry) that Skinner constructs that can be both simple and profoundly deep.Cut out references to modern life, as Skinner has done here, and the result is an oddly philosophical party record that is both enjoyable and inspiring.I just wish those choruses were a bit less sloppy and the beats a bit bigger.
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