Would any non-Brits care to comment on the Streets?

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I've read a handful of favourable reviews on US websites, but I'd be interested to hear how well Mike Skinner goes down with, like, the kids. That's you.

― Wooden, Thursday, 22 July 2004 12:33 (twenty-one years ago)

I couldn't deal with it live. I couldn't deal with paying $6 for beer either.

Poo on him. Dizzee was good.

― I CAN LEAD YOU THROUGH THE ZONE (ex machina), Thursday, 22 July 2004 12:36 (twenty-one years ago)

http://ilx.wh3rd.net/search.php?board=2

― the neurotic awakening of s (blueski), Thursday, 22 July 2004 12:42 (twenty-one years ago)

this american kid wrote out a review here

executive summary: it sounded clipped and forced at first, but i grew to like it, and i enjoy the glimpse into another country's 20-something 'culture'

― common_person (common_person), Thursday, 22 July 2004 12:48 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm a 24 year old non-Brit who listens to the Streets. It took me about 2 spins to get used to his cadence and such, but the new album floors me every time I play it. And you can count the number of rap albums I own on one hand. Okay, maybe two. Even my wife (who makes me turn off Dizzee when she's in the room) has professed a growing admiration for Mr. Skinner. No one else I know likes him though.

― jedidiah (jedidiah), Thursday, 22 July 2004 13:38 (twenty-one years ago)

Is he/they seen as 'rap' or even related to 'rap' in teh States?

― Enrique (Enrique), Thursday, 22 July 2004 13:42 (twenty-one years ago)

no.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 22 July 2004 13:43 (twenty-one years ago)

He ain't no Uncle Kracker, but all in all he seems like a good bloke.

― Mark (MarkR), Thursday, 22 July 2004 13:44 (twenty-one years ago)

i like the streets and the show i went to recently was great. i am canadian though, and thus part of the commonwealth, so maybe i don't count

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 22 July 2004 13:48 (twenty-one years ago)

I think people slot him in with 2-step or garage, at least I did (note this requires ponce-like levels of Anglophilia to begin with)

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 22 July 2004 13:49 (twenty-one years ago)

It's sold in the rap section at most record stores. Of course, people also claim Blondie's "Rapture" is the first rap song to be played on the radio, so I guess he's about as "rap" as Blondie.

― jedidiah (jedidiah), Thursday, 22 July 2004 13:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Another non-Brit speaks.
From all the reviews I've read (and categorization in stores) The Streets is indeed called "rap." Cos even though he's not an American-style MC, it's the closest frame of reference the US has. But this leads to some saying he's a "bad rapper," which is true in a Jay-Z-type sense, but not exactly relevant. Funnily, a lot of the people who seem to like him here don't seem to be heavily into hip hop.
I find some of his lyrics and his delivery endearing, but the major problem is the music behind it. It's just not intricate or powerful in any sense - nor is it even interesting in any simple / primitive / bedroom way. He's OK I guess, but I listened to a burned copy twice, smiled a few times, got most of the references (I think!), then threw it in the trash - not out of spite, but just cos i knew i'd never want to hear it again.

― paulhw (paulhw), Thursday, 22 July 2004 13:51 (twenty-one years ago)

I'd like to see him live. I'm pretty infatuated with his shit lately, to the point where I accidentally slip into skinner-voice when I'm drunk and freestyling.

Lately I've been playing lots of cards, lots of poker, and it seems that whenever "Stay Positive" is on, I totally clean up.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 22 July 2004 13:52 (twenty-one years ago)

what happens when Not Addicted is on?

i really wanted to see him live but both nights were sold out before i got off my ass and looked for tickets! fuck new york -- the one night at 9:30 didn't even sell out (at least not as of the day before)

― common_person (common_person), Thursday, 22 July 2004 13:57 (twenty-one years ago)

The music's an odd 'un in the UK too. Part of the charm must be its shittiness (in the non-perjorative sense).

― Enrique (Enrique), Thursday, 22 July 2004 14:05 (twenty-one years ago)

People in the US who think of him as "rap" tend to think of him as either "rap done all wrong and corny" (and therefore hate him) or as "not really rap, but rather some weird Britty spin on it" (and therefore like him). Hence the idea that the records appeal to Americans who don't really like American rap, as such (see counting-on-one-hand, above). This is probably in limited ways true, but the obviously implications that you might draw from it (corny done-wrong rap for people who don't like rap in the first place!) are not, I don't think, quite so simple.

Lots of Americans like the Streets. He gets plenty of magazine coverage (even a guy I know at GQ interviewed him a while back), and sells what I imagine is a decent number of records. Largely, I'd guess, to audiences who aren't too bothered by any rap / not-rap issues and just find it odd interesting stuff with interesting beats and an odd interesting vibe that just happens to contain rap-like vocalizing.

― nabiscothingy, Thursday, 22 July 2004 14:25 (twenty-one years ago)

The store I used to work at filed him in the rap / hip-hop section, but I get the feeling we would have sold ten times as many copies had we filed it in electronic or even indie. Granted, this was an indieish store, but still: the people in those aisles are probably more in the mood to hear Skinner's thing than the people flipping through MF Doom projects.

― nabiscothingy, Thursday, 22 July 2004 14:28 (twenty-one years ago)

I think Skinner's beats, while decidedly minimal, are very intuitive, in terms of setting up & accentuating his storytelling.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 22 July 2004 14:36 (twenty-one years ago)

"rap done all wrong and corny"

Does 'corny' mean something different in the States? Over here it kind of means 'clichéd'.

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 22 July 2004 14:41 (twenty-one years ago)

it's conotatively but not denotatively different. it's got more of an 'embarassing and goofy' vibe stateside.

― j e r e m y (x Jeremy), Thursday, 22 July 2004 14:46 (twenty-one years ago)

farther... I think that many of the Americans who like it seem to be people who've spent time in England.

― j e r e m y (x Jeremy), Thursday, 22 July 2004 14:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Or Anglophiles, Jeremy.

― Lukas (lukas), Thursday, 22 July 2004 16:10 (twenty-one years ago)

When the first album came out I was listening to a lot more rap and I loved it - listened to it more than anything coming out at the time. I haven't bothered with the new one at all and what I've heard hasn't really struck me.

― Sonny A. (Keiko), Thursday, 22 July 2004 16:18 (twenty-one years ago)

You really have to listen to the new one through in one sitting, Sonny. It doesn't make that much sense in bits.

― Wooden, Thursday, 22 July 2004 16:19 (twenty-one years ago)

i like the streets. i like conventional hip-hop, and indie rock/pop. i am not a big fan of dizzee. i have never been to england. i saw mike and them in concert, a local hip-hop guy opened and was not well recieved. seemed like mostly upper 20-somethings even though it was a college town. good stuff.

― Von, Thursday, 22 July 2004 16:24 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah, i think if you're going to give it a chance to make an impression, at least one one-sitting listen is required

xpost

― common_person (common_person), Thursday, 22 July 2004 16:25 (twenty-one years ago)

I love the Streets and English isn't even my first language.

― JoB (JoB), Thursday, 22 July 2004 17:48 (twenty-one years ago)

I love the Streets and I'm stone deaf.

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 22 July 2004 19:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Skinner won my mom over with A Grand..., when she asks me about him she refers to him as "that nice English boy that lost his money".

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 22 July 2004 19:39 (twenty-one years ago)

I was looking for a Streets single at a corporate store the other day and found that they had moved him from "Rap" to "Dance."

...

― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Thursday, 22 July 2004 19:40 (twenty-one years ago)

My mom hates the Streets, but she likes "around here we say birds not bitches." She listens to G. Love and Starsailor. Gross.

― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Thursday, 22 July 2004 19:42 (twenty-one years ago)

Nickalicious' post wins so far. Not that it's a competition.

― Wooden, Thursday, 22 July 2004 20:07 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't like when they sing the hooks. That shit is terrible.

― artdamages (artdamages), Thursday, 22 July 2004 20:11 (twenty-one years ago)

the hooks are terrible. he has to keep talking, or you realise that he has no way with a chorus. Or "songwriting" (not really the point, but I don't mind the verses...it's just everything else outstays its welcome)

i love english slang words like "bird." reminds me of benny hill or something. Same goes with "tart," "tosser" or "skank". Or suchlike.

― paulhw (paulhw), Thursday, 22 July 2004 20:13 (twenty-one years ago)

Where do you come from that they don't say "skank" ?

I realize the new album is an "Album" and that's kinda why I don't want to get into it. I'm not in an Album-oriented position right now.

― Sonny A. (Keiko), Thursday, 22 July 2004 20:29 (twenty-one years ago)

I'd never heard "skank" until I met an Englishman. I live in New York.
(btw: relationship between "skank" woman and "rockafeller skank" as a title?)

― paulhw (paulhw), Thursday, 22 July 2004 21:55 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm from the U.S., I don't understand any of Mr. Skinner's britishisms ("geezer"? "all gone a bit Pete"?) but I STILL think A Grand Don't Come for Free is the best album of the millennium so far. So nyeah.

― Mr. Snrub, Thursday, 22 July 2004 22:23 (twenty-one years ago)

Snrub (I assume you come from...somewhere far away);

Geezer: dude.

All gone a bit Pete: Pete Tong is a massive (and rubbish) house DJ. ' Gone a bit Pete Tong' is rhyming slang for 'gone a bit wrong'. It is most commonly used to describe the state of people who are 'mashed' on 'pills'.

Anything else I can help clear up?

― Wooden, Thursday, 22 July 2004 22:31 (twenty-one years ago)

if it's not Scottish it's crap

― STINKOR™, Thursday, 22 July 2004 22:34 (twenty-one years ago)

The senseless slander of Petes in slang must stop.

I played that "Your Fit" song in the park Monday and got a lot of comments from people asking, "Who was that British guy?"

― Pete Scholtes, Thursday, 22 July 2004 22:52 (twenty-one years ago)

what does simone mean when she says 'give back my keys guh i'll be proper angry' ? is that just a weird way of pronouncing 'or' ?
jacksie = asshole?
super tennents = malt liquor? or more generally, strong cheap beer?
how does ITV fit into the british television system?
can you explain the femme fatale / she's fitter than you anyway thing?

― common_person (common_person), Thursday, 22 July 2004 22:57 (twenty-one years ago)

and can you explain the bad choruses?

― paulhw (paulhw), Thursday, 22 July 2004 22:59 (twenty-one years ago)

Whenever my friends listen to it in the car we just laugh at how "English" he is. Then they still call me and ask if I bought the new one.

― David Allen (David Allen), Thursday, 22 July 2004 22:59 (twenty-one years ago)

what does simone mean when she says 'give back my keys guh i'll be proper angry' ?

It's "but I'll be proper angry (... if you're not back later on your knees)"

jacksie = asshole?

Yep.

super tennents = malt liquor? or more generally, strong cheap beer?

Strong (9% ABV or so) cheap lager.

how does ITV fit into the british television system?

It was the second TV channel we got after BBC1. It has public service obligations, but not as much as the BBC does. Funded by advertising. Seen as lower class than BBC.

can you explain the femme fatale / she's fitter than you anyway thing?

I can't remember now if it makes any more sense than the rambling it sounds like. Is it about a specific woman?

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 22 July 2004 23:04 (twenty-one years ago)

I love the choruses! Esp. 'Could Well Be In'.

And corny as 'Dry Your Eyes' gets after a while, the "I know you want to make her see how much this pain hurts" line is just perfect. Simple, but that's so much of what getting over someone is, so having it repeated over and over works, for me.

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 22 July 2004 23:07 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't know who the 'femme fatale' is supposed to be; I reckon it's supposed to be a reference to a character in a film or TV programe that Mike and Denise have watched together who sparked a previous ('off screen') argument due to Mike fancying her. It's this kind of half ambiguous (almost throwaway) detail that enriches the fictional world in which the album is set.

Sorry. I studied English Lit.

― Wooden, Thursday, 22 July 2004 23:17 (twenty-one years ago)

I finally got myself OPM 2-3 wks ago, and have listened to it semi-obsessively during much of the time since. About halfway through, I realized that whether or not he's hiphop, he's the British ani difranco.

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Thursday, 22 July 2004 23:40 (twenty-one years ago)

eww

― artdamages (artdamages), Thursday, 22 July 2004 23:56 (twenty-one years ago)

My iPod, which is American, files him under Electronic/Dance.

― Scott CE (Scott CE), Thursday, 22 July 2004 23:58 (twenty-one years ago)

Errrm, here's FEMME FATALE, for the uninitiated. The link I found is from Maxim magazine, of all places.

― broken twig, Friday, 23 July 2004 00:04 (twenty-one years ago)

jesus, sorry about the fucking awful "interview". It's hardlr representative of Femme, who is brilliant as it happens.

― broken twig, Friday, 23 July 2004 00:06 (twenty-one years ago)

I was wrong. She's fitter than I imagine Denise to be.

― Wooden, Friday, 23 July 2004 00:30 (twenty-one years ago)

can you explain the femme fatale / she's fitter than you anyway thing?

He's talking about Brain De Palma's 'Femme Fatale' which he's seen on DVD (as per the opening track). It starred Rebecca Romjin-Stamos (sp.?) who is fit.

― Henry K M (Enrique), Friday, 23 July 2004 07:39 (twenty-one years ago)

I am so chuffed at getting the ref I use my own name. The film went straight to DVD in the UK, and the box was real 'erotic thriller' cheese. Actually, I think it says 'Brian De Palma -- Master of the Erotic Thriller' and is therefore exactly the kind of thing Mike would rent, no?

― Enrique (Enrique), Friday, 23 July 2004 07:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Maybe, but he's still talking about the DJ, I'll wager. Decent film, though.

― broken twig, Friday, 23 July 2004 07:51 (twenty-one years ago)

Again, I give you 1xtra garage DJ and object of Skinner's affections, FEMME FATALE.

― broken twig, Friday, 23 July 2004 07:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Isn't he saying 'I'm never gonna meet her' though? He might well meet a 1xtra DJ. I like my idea anyway.

― Enrique (Enrique), Friday, 23 July 2004 07:59 (twenty-one years ago)

Skinner might meet her, but his "character" probably won't.

― broken twig, Friday, 23 July 2004 08:01 (twenty-one years ago)

http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B0000897EA.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Friday, 23 July 2004 08:03 (twenty-one years ago)

'Two thumbs up' indeed.

― Enrique (Enrique), Friday, 23 July 2004 08:04 (twenty-one years ago)

The film went straight to DVD in the UK, and the box was real 'erotic thriller' cheese.

I own this DVD. Here in the USA the box is exactly the same.

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Friday, 23 July 2004 08:04 (twenty-one years ago)

'Fit But You Know It' is mentioned in The Onion this week

― DJ Mencap (DJ Mencap), Friday, 23 July 2004 08:39 (twenty-one years ago)

My coworkers who are in the 22-25 age range all seem to really like both albums. In the US, at least one of the videos off of OPM was played in Target stores (Target being a large chain that sells everything from electronics and music to housewares, clothing, and now groceries).

― mike h. (mike h.), Friday, 23 July 2004 12:56 (twenty-one years ago)

I heard him for the first time tonight, catching two videos on The Wedge. "Dry Your Eyes" is just horrible and caused me to wonder "This is what everyone on ILM is on about?" "Don't Mug Yourself" was kind of cute though.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Saturday, 24 July 2004 03:51 (twenty-one years ago)

EXPLANATION PLEASE: "I'm never gonna darken your towels again."

― Mr. Snrub, Saturday, 24 July 2004 11:18 (twenty-one years ago)

"Never darken your doors again" ="Never visit you again" (old idiomatic expression - don't know the origin.

"Never gonna darken your towels again" = worldplay on the above, meaning the same. Mike Skinner didn't invent. I think someone said Tony Hancock did, but I don't know.

― Alba (Alba), Saturday, 24 July 2004 13:26 (twenty-one years ago)

"Never gonna darken your towels again" is a step forward from 'door's... it's got an implication that one would be at some place long enough (or involved in a strenous-enough activity) to necessitate the borrowing, and dirtying, of towels - namely sex.

― j e r e m y (x Jeremy), Saturday, 24 July 2004 13:35 (twenty-one years ago)

I heard 'never darken your towels again' was pilfered from Spike Milligan.

― Wooden, Saturday, 24 July 2004 22:29 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh yeah, that's right - I was misremembering when I said I thought someone said it was Hancock.

― Alba (Alba), Saturday, 24 July 2004 22:32 (twenty-one years ago)

I mean no, what am I saying! Not Spike Milligan. Groucho Marx. I just checked.

― Alba (Alba), Saturday, 24 July 2004 22:33 (twenty-one years ago)

All of the publications I read loop him in with the new wave of "edgy" artists earning mainstream success (Franz Ferdinand, Bright Eyes, The Postal Service, The Flaming Lips, The Shins, Deathcab For Cutie, et al). Newsweek to thread.

― Atnevon (Atnevon), Sunday, 25 July 2004 04:16 (twenty-one years ago)

I like him. "Dry Your Eyes" had me in tears yesterday (although what DOESN'T, lately).

― Layna Andersen (Layna Andersen), Sunday, 25 July 2004 05:48 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm from Toronto and adore The Streets - his recent show here sold out with the bare minimum of promotion, which meant I didn't know until too late that Mike Skinner was coming to town.

I love both of the albums for different reasons. Original Pirate Material is great mix CD fodder, as you can randomly grab a favourite track and throw it on. A Grand Don't Come For Free demands to be heard end-to-end.

As far as the "is-he-really-hip-hop-or-not" debate goes, who cares? I like conventional rap stuff (especially old-school) and I like Mike Skinner, and I don't see any contradiction between the two.

― Tantrum The Cat (Tantrum The Cat), Sunday, 25 July 2004 18:19 (twenty-one years ago)

number one with a fckng bullet. i was so so goin to put ££ on a number 1 about 2 months ago that its not even funny. still, hats off 2 mikee. the days of chatting to him at glastonbury while he eats his noodles with a placcy fork are so over.

― piscesboy, Sunday, 25 July 2004 18:26 (twenty-one years ago)

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