The Streets - Everything is Borrowed

The Vitals

Album – Everything is Borrowed
Artist – The Streets
Release Date – October 7th, 2008

In a nut shell – The penultimate album from Mike Skinner’s “The Streets” finds our hero in a reflective state, much to the joy of optimists and chagrin of hipsters…

Mike Skinner perfectly summed up this album when he described it as “a peaceful coming to terms.” This might make the album difficult to digest at first, those of us looking for tracks on the perils of doing blow and sleeping with pop stars will be sorely dissapointed, but trust me, in the end, it’s going to lift you up.

There is so much I love about this album, but it’s hard to put into words, trust me on this much, this is not your hipster older brothers Streets. But hey, don’t worry, while you’re falling in love with Mike Skinner’s views on heaven (Go there for the weather), he can keep on moping around with Belle and Sebastian (or something equally as dreary).

No, this is not an album for the cynic,  but it is an album that should have been called Stay Positive, sorry, The Hold Steady.

Skinner is a gifted story teller, and delivers, with equal gravity, tales of late nights with best friends and suicide attempts with a turn a phrase that has an almost entirely unique style and flow. To me, nobody else in the world sounds like The Streets. And being an optimist at heart (don’t you tell a soul or I’ll cut you!), it’s really nice to hear an album every now and then that is bursting with genuine positivity and creativity. It’s also nice to hear Skinner tackle subjects with more depth than being fit and sneaking drugs in your shoe.

I assume this is how yuppies feel after listening to Tony Robbins speak…

Mike Skinner (pictured above), leader of the UK outfit The Streets, does a brilliant job taking the piss out of those ridiculous motivational speakers in the video for “Heaven For The Weather,” the latest single from The Streets’ fourth album, Everything Is Borrowed. The single is quite good as well. It seems like Skinner has got his mojo back after a weak third album.

To watch the video for “Heaven For The Weather” by The Streets, click below:

For additional information on The Streets, see:
http://www.the-streets.co.uk
http://www.myspace.com/thestreets

The Street’s who released the latest album “Everything Is Borrowed” earlier this year, has just dropped off the newest video from the album. The latest single is “Heaven For The Weather” which features Mike as Dr. M. Skinner a cult guru with a large fan base of followers for his book “Get Low”

The video reminds me of my days in University and is fitting for The Streets, though perhaps not their best.

Billboard — “Just when I discover the meaning of life they change it,” Mike Skinner raps with typically uneasy, endearing coordination on his fourth album’s opening title track, but those aren’t the gutter scribblings of the desperately hungover—they’re a swelling carpe diem with a soaring hook (as soaring as you can get via Skinner’s keyboard-in-the-bedroom-closet vibe, anyway). Skinner has spent the few albums since his grand debut “Original Pirate Material” getting progressively more thoughtful, melodic and predictable, and where “Everything Is Borrowed” might lack the hair-singeing novelty of his debut (or its story-time follow-up “A Grand Don’t Come for Free”), there’s still plenty to keep things interesting: “Heaven for the Weather” is positively jaunty, “I Love You More (Than You Like Me)” is rather sweet, and Skinner’s dancing wordplay hits the beats on the gently meandering “On the Flip of a Coin” just right.

• The Streets – Everything Is Borrowed.mp3