The Streets

After storming into the music scene with his first two mind-bogglingly brilliant albums, The Streets (Mike Skinner) couldn't have been blamed too much for finally releasing a clunker with 2006's The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living. The big question, though, was whether or not he would be able to recapture the spark that had garnered him such acclaim in the first place.

The answer is a resounding, "Yes." With Everything Is Borrowed, Skinner has crafted an album that washes clean the bitter taste left by its predecessor and simultaneously expands Skinner's sonic palette. Gone are the tinny laptop sounds that defined his sound before, as Skinner has brought live instrumentation into the mix, bringing out a more lush, optimistic sound.

It's a canny move, and the optimism of the production is mirrored in Skinner's lyrics. Where The Hardest Way… was Skinner's celebrity navel-gazing album, stock-full of drug binges and anonymous sex, Everything Is Borrowed looks more to spirituality and love than coke and groupies for material. That's not to say that Skinner has turned into an idealist, though–"I Love You More (Than You Like Me)" keeps Skinner's uniquely British cynicism intact, while environmental degradation dance track "The Way Of The Dodo" keeps heads nodding and brows furrowing.

While the album slightly sags in the middle–the religiously-skeptical "Alleged Legends" droops both musically and lyrically–Skinner saves his best, and most interesting, for the last two tracks. First is "The Strongest Person I Know," where he tries a relentlessly self-critical but doe-eyed love lullaby on for size, and it succeeds magnificently.

The heart-wrenchingly gorgeous "The Escapist," though, leaves everything else in its wake with its thick, big-hearted production, cautiously hopeful lyrics and the type of burst-at-the-seams hooks that seem to come to Skinner in his sleep. With a finish like that, I can't wait to see what's next.

—Matt Mundy
10.08.08

By the end of the last Streets album, The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living, listeners and even most fans were ready for Mike Skinner to stop complaining about the perils of celebrity. Skinner sounded crass and cynical, utterly disgusted with his life and very bitter about what it had become. (In so doing, it proved that he's one of the most honest songwriters to ever step up to a microphone.) Everything Is Borrowed is a neat about-face, a record that couldn't be more different from its predecessor. Sincere, considered, and poignant, Everything Is Borrowed finds Skinner remaining one of the foremost lyricists in pop music, and so much the better when the focus of his sharp writing is the struggle of weighty concepts instead of flimsy celebrity. Skinner's characters in these parables are struggling, no doubt, but in the process they're also coming upon profound insights about life, death, and love, ranging from the slightly pithy ecology dance piece "The Way of the Dodo" all the way up to the struggle between good and evil in each person ("Heaven for the Weather," which reveals its odd title and its lyrical genius in the line "I want to go to heaven for the weather/But hell for the company"). The instrumentation, as well, is far more different than any previous Streets record. Although the drums don't always sound live, most of the time they are, courtesy of drummer Johnny "Drum Machine" Jenkins. Electric guitar and bass occupy a lot of space, along with the occasional strings and even brass. Nevertheless, since the instruments are wielded the same way that the synths were in the past, there's no radical change in format. Skinner still busies himself speaking most of the verses (often tripping over himself) and singing every chorus (usually off-key), as though he's stumbling upon every genius line, daft as they sometimes sound. He's just as stingy with his productions as he has been ever since the second Streets album, so those who ache for the crystalline production perfection of Original Pirate Material won't find much here to cling to. But singing (or speaking) words of wisdom like this certainly makes up for his gradual move away from the super-producer status he's enjoyed in the past. Suddenly optimistic, or at least philosophical, about life, Skinner catches lightning in the bottle for the third time, and makes it clear that once we're able to look back at the Streets discography -- Skinner has promised that this is the fourth of five -- it will be easy to see The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living much more simply, troubled and frustrating though it was, as a way to exorcise some of his darker demons, and make the journey to the light more invigorating. ~ John Bush, All Music Guide