January 10, 2005
What was old is new again
After watching the Buick LaCrosse Product Placement Variety Hour (formerly known as Desperate Hosuewives) with downstairs neighbor Katie, she showed me a changer full of CD-Rs from a music snob friend (not me) who wanted to get her away from the crunk and into something a little more, well, not crunk.
Among those CDs was The Streets' A Grand Don't Come For Free, which I had planned to revisit during the year-end period as part of a larger series of posts revisiting albums I didn't like when the came out. Now and then, I listen a few times, don't get it and store it away for quite some time before I pull it out in a fit of boredom and discover it's the best new album of a year ago. So now I have no excuse to get cracking.
Yes, I like "Fit but don't you know it," but the rest of this album tortuously sticks to its larger theme of love and loss of money with the obligatory UK geezer pastimes and mannerisms thrown in. Almost entirely gone are the rambunctious beats of Original Pirate Material tracks like "Lets Push Things Forward," "Sharp Darts" and "Don't Mug Yourself," nor most of the humor in "Too Much Brandy" and "The Irony Of It All." Mike Skinner became a slave to the thin plot, cutting out his trademark clever wordplay and spot-on scene-setting to jam in foreshadowing and a hokey love affair theme.
And "Dry Your Eyes," makes me cringe. It's so obvious that the guy can write lyrics and that his rhyming style is innovative; why can't he use his powers for good instead of wasting them on this syrupy pap?
I would feel bad asking for an Original Pirate Material II, but I just don't like the new direction taken by A Grand Don't Come For Free and I hope this is a diversion from an otherwise fuitful career.
So something like eight months after I first heard it, A Grand Don't Come For Free isn't any better.
Next up: TV on the Radio, one of these days.
Posted by rj3 at January 10, 2005 3:50 PM
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Comments
The Streets sucked live. Bad.
Posted by: chrisafer at January 11, 2005 12:15 PM
I gotta disagree, Dry Your Eye is one of the best songs of the past 5 years, IMO
Posted by: Stone at January 11, 2005 9:20 PM
nononono you're wrong. When listened to on any "morning after" A Grand Don't Come For Free will be the sweetest sound you ever heard, I promise. Although I imagine you bloggers don't have too many of those....
Posted by: bostonian at January 15, 2005 4:18 AM