Music

Never one to mince his words, Mike Skinner gets to the point of this album within the first minute. Over an ominous piano hook, the Brummie-accented rap-chatter explains that he’s back from tour, that he’s feeling depressed and that he’s using brandy, cocaine and crack to cope. Those overindulgences, he admits, have caused headaches, panic attacks and a punch-up with his manager. Worse, he’s hearing voices and he’s concerned he might turn to suicide.

All that in those first 60 seconds. It’s gripping stuff, especially when you realise that unlike 2004’s hip hopera, ‘A Grand Don’t Come For Free’, the brutal tales Skinner tells on this third album are true ones.

This, then, is 'The Streets’ ‘fame really screws you up’ record. Of course,  successful, wealthy celebrities don’t often inspire much sympathy from the great unwashed when they grumble about being successful and wealthy. Skinner, though, pulls it off. This, after all, is the bloke who rhymed about going for beers at the Dogstar on his first album and about dodgy mobile signals and dodgier pills on his second. He’s always been a convincing (and likeable) everyman and, consequently, you don’t just believe him when he reveals that his life has hit the wall, you feel bad for him too. Even more so when you learn that Skinner’s dad died just before ‘A Grand Don’t Come For Free’ was released.

Just as importantly, though, the wry, razor-sharp humour of the first two Streets albums drives this one too. Skinner might spin literate yarns about gambling problems, substance abuse, bereavement and self-loathing, but he does it with a wry, self-mocking charm. Besides, the album is by no means all depression and despair – there are easily as many light moments  as dark ones. Add that to the fact that Skinner’s grimey, urgent tunes are still as imaginative and hooky as his rhymes and you realise that he’s just scored his hat-trick of brilliant albums.