The Streets – A Grand Don't Come for Free (2004)

Anyone who knows my musical taste, knows that I'm not a big fan of rap or hip hop. The main things I like about music are melody and vocals. Then why do I own this album? I really liked the first The Streets album with it's dark and melancholic urban sounding backgrounds and I liked the fact that Mike Skinner was rapping in a heavy Birmingham accent about societal issues, which seemed like such a departure from mainstream hip hop at the time, which was mainly misogynistic and very American and non-melodic. I found myself really liking a few songs from the first album, so when I saw this CD with a couple of pounds in a record store in Notting Hill, I decided to buy it. Unfortunately, this second album is not by far as good as the first one. The backgrounds are, at least to me, very lazy compared to the predeceasing album.

Even before I moved to the UK, I was a fan of many different kinds of UK accents and I think Mike Skinner's heavy Birmingham accent was one of the main things that drew me to his music. Now with the Brexit, my attitude towards this type of working class midlands accent has changed and it has a negative cling to it. Brexit felt like it had betrayed the country I really liked. Suddenly many very British things that I found quite fascinating started sounding negative. Now listening to this album, it's kind of difficult to understand what originally made me like this kind of accent.

Being a melody fan that I am, I think the best song on this album is Dry Your Eyes, that doesn't really sound like a hip hop song at all. Sure, there's some rapping, but the backgrounds are played with an acoustic guitar and there's some actual singing in there. The chorus actually sounds quite good, and I feel like it's a shame that Skinner isn't singing more.

There are some good moments on this album, such as Blinded by the Light, which features similar sound world as the first album with its melancholic background. Get Out of My House is quite good as well in its own genre of storytelling rapping. It kind of reminds me of some Lily Allen songs as well. Fit But You Know It has some proper indie garage guitars on it, which I really like. This sounds like it could be a lost Blur song from the 90's. Could Well Be In has similar sounds as some of the 90's electronica such as Moby or trip hop bands like Tricky.

The Streets is known for film like music videos where Skinner is usually acting himself. He even has done some acting in television. Blinded by the Light video is a good example of his style of music videos.

This album is a series of stories that follow each other. So, in a way it's a concept album. It's one story about a character Mike Skinner has created.

I don't really listen to this album much, but I feel like it's good that I own some music from outside of my comfort zone and The Streets are an important part of the history of popular music, which I always find important as a collector.

Listen to the album on Spotify.