@threespires has done a fantastic job of advocating for this album and giving it much more context than I'd got from my first listen. If indeed the suggestion is true that that Mike Skinner is somehow "writing down" to inhabit the world of his protagonist then he is setting himself a tricky balancing act. I listened to a bit more of the Streets to test the comparison, it was pretty random selection though as chosen by Spotify "top tracks", around half of which came from this album which suggest, I think, that this is his most played or most popular piece of work.
For what it's worth I did think there was a higher level of sophistication on the tracks not from this album but that isn't really saying that much. He has musical moments where there is a snatch of melody or counterpoint (or whatever, what the fuck do I know) that is quite affecting. I don't know if this is even from the same musical genre as Kanye West but it's the only artist I can make a comparison to having been exposed to a fair bit of his work in the days I was ferrying my son back and to to University. West seemed capable of some sublime musical moments (although my favourite thing about listening to him was being able to say to my son, oh that's King Crimson he's sampling or that's Gil Scott-Heron or that's the Wombles (or whatever, what the fuck do I know).
Anyway we're coming to the nub. My initial response to this was about the nursery rhyme lyrics and that is a sweeping generalisation I make of all this hip-hop or rap or whatever the fuck it is. Sometimes it's clever wordplay but usually it's just finding as many words that rhyme as they can and then strangling the English language to get them at the end of the line. The Streets, whether it's this album or his other stuff fall into the same category.
Although, there were some phrases I thought, in my limited knowledge of the demographic being portrayed that I thought were pretty authentic and even made me laugh, well smile. Dry Your Eyes is to be fair a very good track, capturing as it does the shallow and transient heartbreak of so many young loves. Equally there were moments that made me cringe and one in particular, I can't remember which track, where I thought for a minute I was listening to a Flight of the Conchords pastiche.
First time I had it on my son was in the other room and we were agreeing amongst ourselves of the not very goodness of it. This was the country loving son though, not the older Kanye West fan. I asked him if he was familiar with the Streets and what he thought but it seems it's only black American rappers he identifies with (to be fair his musical tastes have expanded nicely but I still here some, erm, shite coming from his room).
How to score this. I do get that it's clever but would his audience know how clever it is? I'm guessing that threespires has given it more thought than his target audience who could probably quote all the sweary bits and emphasise with the drug references (of course I'm also being clever playing the part of a reactionary old fart here, me and my wife had to laugh at ourselves for falling into the "do they call that music" trap in reaction to something my older son was playing to psyche himself up for his football).
I think it's better than I first gave it credit for. But not much. Or it's a genre that I just don't get anything out of. I can't go higher than a 5
