The Streets: A Grand Don't Come for Free

Reviewed by RUSSELL BAILLIE

Herald rating: * * * * *

Once upon a time a list titled "Great British hip-hop albums" would have worked better as an Ali G gag than a pop quiz.

That was until Original Pirate Material, the Streets' 2002 debut, which helped open the door for Dizzee Rascal and his 2003 list-contender Boy in Da Corner.

And now fighting with those for the Brit-hop top spot is this second from the Streets, who is known - to his local publican, video store guy and telly repairman - as plain old Mike Skinner.

Actually, the TV guy has a pivotal role in the day-or-so-in-the-life narrative which runs through the 11 tracks that, collectively, can initially leave you wondering if you've loaded up a DVD of a Ken Loach movie by mistake.

Its predecessor musically mostly sprang from the UK garage club sound. But here the backings are unfussy, often delicate DIY-sounding. They frame Skinner's voice and autobiographical lyrics in which he ponders his life that's unlucky in love, friendship and gambling, and can't find solace in staying on the couch all day, drinking lager and smoking spliffs in front of a telly that's on the blink.

That geezer-ish, low-key delivery sounds as if there is no microphone, or indeed, traditional rap attitude involved. That's what makes it so brilliant.

It comes with a ready-made hit in the guitar-powered stomp of Fit But You Know It, which sounds more like a cousin to Blur's Girls & Boys than hip-hop. But the real joy here is in Skinner's insightful, gripping monologues about his day from hell.

Starting with It Was Supposed to be So Be Easy (a hilariously sorry tale about a missing box of cash and an unsuccessful mission to return a DVD), soon Skinner is chatting up (Could Well Be In), breaking up (Get out of My House), and trying to patch it up (Dry Your Eyes). There is time too for necking pills down the local club (Blinded by the Lights) and other social-life misadventures.

If that sounds like a bit of a romp, its closing songs give it an ending that sounds paranoid and violent. Or do they? The end track Empty Cans winds back on itself, effectively offering alternative endings, one happy, one not so.

That he pulls off such a deft twist to his ambitious storytelling proves Skinner is much smarter than the self-portrait his second album paints of him.

And A Grand Don't Come for Free emerges as a declaration of his Brit-hop genius.

(Locked On/Warner)