Geezers stay excited...

Excellent album after a few listens. Love the concept of how Brits "invented the language" not us Yanks so don't tell us Brits how to speak. :-)

Geeze

Considering it was semi-suprising that Skinner didn't end up with a sophomore slump (Grand was interesting, and although a step down, far from dissapointing) it's not at all shocking that his third album hits a wall in a bad way. For the most part, there's absolutely nothing her that was present on his first 2 discs. He's semi removed himself from the garage claims he came up on, in that his production is sharper and his beats are cleaner. But that, unfortunately, doesn't make the album good, or even descent. It has none of the emotion, feeling or believability that his first two discs had. The first single "when you wasn't famous" is a significant step down from the singles from "Grand," just as those were a step down from OPM. Regardless, there is just nothing here to attract new fans, or warrant a couple superficial listens from existing STreets fans. Skinner sounds weak here and his topic change from middle class to the lives of the rich and famous just isn't interesting. There's no believability here; and even if the album is a parody, it's an unlikeable one. The mysanthropy, anger, and satire here are lazy and unbearably frustrating. After two albums that were as great as they were, the slip is understanding. But it's dissapointing nonetheless and the absence of the old Skinner is striking, and not in a good way.

Mike Skinner wrestles with success on a stellar new album

If you don't think pop stardom is a total drag, well then, you must not be very famous. Just ask Britney or Lindsay, Michael or Madonna. Now even Mike Skinner has lent his 'umble mumble to this all-star chorus of lamentation. With The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living, the 26-year-old British MC/producer, better known as the Streets, flirts with the perilous self-indulgence of celebrity autobiography. But with his knack for extracting humor from the mundane, Skinner's the perfect poet for this snooze of a topic: Tedium is his medium. His perspective on the annoyances that beset the hapless and famous hardly differs from his insight into "a day in the life of a geezer," which he surveyed on his 2002 debut, Original Pirate Material. Geezer's famous now. In Britain, anyway.