The Streets – The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living

the_streets
Originally uploaded by Danny Walker 1.

After recently watching the first play of The Streets’ latest video When You Were Famous (for those that missed out, slipment on your part), like others, our ears, eyes and noses have been to the ground hunting out the latest. So when an album playback invite lands in your Inbox, all work naturally goes ‘on hold’, email is swiftly set to Out of Office Auto-Reply and the next part of your day is spent eagerly making your way across London.
Swanky hotels are pretty standard nowadays and London’s Soho Hotel was just another notch on RWD’s ‘Wasn’t I here Last Week?’ editorial bedpost. Unphased and unhindered the playback’s Suite was located and I was soon in the presence of pleasant press officers, respected piers and fellow noble knights of the writing profession (oh and Sun journalists).
With the last single Could Well Be In [30 - December 2004] transfixed into the upper left lobe of brain memory and forthcoming single When You Were Famous [out March 27th] transferred [legally - via promo] to the Recently Added playlist of iPod memory, I was in the perfect state of mind to be enlightened by Skinners’ new pirate material. The new vid was watched - with many later discussing the standard Streets visual wit - and soon enough it was time for the main event. Without delay or even a Michael ‘Let Get Ready to Rumble’ Buffer screech of preparation we were into the first song - Pranging Out. The big bass-filled track was more than an intro and it was soon evident that Mike has been cooking up some treats but more importantly some beats in his kitchen (or wherever in his house he produces). The first, a speedy organ sprinkled thumper, woven under self-analysing lyrics which include, “I get back off tour and suddenly it doesn’t seem so much fun to be off my face at quarter to eleven AM.”
The ‘tricky third album’ was off to a good start and I later find out Pranging Out has 679 second single potential – watch this space for confirmation. We await artwork, lyrics and our own copy but RWD can 100% confirm that the follow-up to the much-loved A Grand Don’t Come For Free is NOT a concept album like its predecessor but The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living [out April 10th] is a much-needed truthful look at Skinners post six-figure Reebok deal, The Beats label creating, crack-cocaine taking, star shagging celebrity life. Skinner states, “As difficult as it was, I knew the most entertaining thing I could do was to tell the truth. Compared to the reality, any fiction I could come up with would seem mundane: I’d never dare to invent anything that crazy, because I wouldn’t think anyone would believe it.” It’s Industry wrong to review an album (watch out for single-potential Never Went to Church) from a 37 minute playback so I’ll rudely leave my reader here .

As told by Danny Walker