A bit of a whingey album (Everything Is Borrowed - The Streets)

Member Name: dangaroo

Product:	Everything Is Borrowed - The Streets
Date:	20/07/09 (8 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Musically quite decent

Disadvantages: Start stop vocals, preachy material!

I've never quite understood the furore surrounding The Streets, the garage band from the UK whose vocalist Mike Skinner has an almost instantly recognisable voice due to the odd Brummy/London mixture have never really tickled my fancy.

I find that Skinner's voice tends to be a bit too slow, rather than having a bit of a hip hop groove to it, it sounds like he sings every song at a spoken pace - almost as if he's based his whole career on the spoken section of Blur's "Parklife" song.

In the past, the songs that I'm familiar with always had a bit of a cheeky chappy outlook to them, most of them about drugs, drink or chasing girls, on Everything is Borrowed, there's a notable change of style. It seems as if they're appealing to the way people have been effected by the credit crunch with numerous songs dedicated to losing things and generally being a bit on the depresive side. Of course most of these tracks do have some sign of hope in them and I suppose that's the selling point.

From rich musicians like The Steets, I find it all a bit difficult to digest though - it doesn't seem as if the words are coming from personal experience and therefore some of the songs sound a bit preachy, just because the lad has a brummy accent it doesn't exactly mean he's lost his job as a street sweeper in Handsworth!

I have to say the songs are well put together but the content doesn't really float my boat and it's not an album I'd spend an awful lot of time listening to - it almost has a miserable Lighthouse Family quality to it!

1 Everything Is Borrowed
2 Heaven For The Weather
3 I Love You More (Than You Like Me)
4 Way Of The Dodo
5 On The Flip Of A Coin
6 On The Edge Of A Cliff
7 Never Give In
8 Sherry End
9 Alleged Legends
10 Strongest Person I Know
11 Escapist

Summary: Further enhancing people's debt with this sentimental rubbish!