A Grand Don't Come For Free - Streets

A Grand don't come for free was the second album that I purchased by The Street and having since purchased a third it is still my favourite, originally I had not really got the whole buzz and hype that surrounded The Streets and the critical acclaim that lead singer Mike Skinner attracted however once I saw them perform live I was hooked. The Streets have a garage style of music that is as much a social commentary on the life of the twenty something city dwelling male in the current economic climate as it is about constructing dance tunes. This particular album is effectively an account of a period of Skinners life told through a succession of songs and is at ...  Read the complete review

"A Grand Don't Come For Free" dropped in 2004 and was the second album from the Birmingham-based UK Hip Hop and Electronica act The Streets. Somewhat steering away from the Garage scene, which had lost its 2-Step elements and developed to become Grime by this point, it has Mike Skinner leading as the vocalist, bringing more experimental material. 1. "It Was Supposed To Be So Easy" The album gets underway with a track that has him blasting through with a heavy track that features some trippy production that I felt was able to connect with the Garage scene that he appears to escape here in the way that he holds on to it with the ...  Read the complete review

A Grand Don't Come For Free The Streets: 2004 I find it very hard to believe that this album is now 5 years old, very hard. Mike Skinner, the lead singer of The Streets is a savvy, white, Brummie' boy who seems to have made it in the World of garage/grime and this album, the band's 2nd (though I could not tell you anyone else in the band) certainly outshone his first, and truth be told, his third album has not met with anything near the acclaim that this one did. This album is really quite interesting in that firstly it follows a story, a narrative from the first song to the last so really, in my opinion should be listened to, in order, a ...  Read the complete review

The Streets, no not where my little card board box of a home is placed, under the wet skies of Paisley, but the Brummie musician formerly known as Mike Skinner, and his garage music. Keeping this review to a similar vein as my Katie Melua one (just with out the obvious "I want them" of seething sexual undertones). Like Melua I'm not really much of a fan of similar artists (Garage music, just isn't my thing, neither is a mockney accent), going as far as to thinking the "T" in "Jamie T" stand for either "Tosser" or "Twat". Who is The Streets? The Streets is the alias used by 28 year old ...  Read the complete review

I put this CD on again last night, and forgot what a masterpiece it is, so I thought I would write a review (also there is nothing to do in the office today), and make all of you go give it a go (even if you just listen to clips off of Amazon!). Ok The Streets is Birmingham musician Mike Skinner, who is a very English rap artist, some compare him to the likes of eminem, but don't listen, they are way off the mark. He recorded his first album Original Pirate Material in 2002, and has now become some sort of a musical legend, I supposed that part of the reason is that Original Pirate Material was created in his bedroom at his mom's Birmingham home, which is ...  Read the complete review