Two years ago, when the Birmingham, England, two-step musician Mike Skinner, a.k.a the Streets, released his debut record, Original Pirate Material, he was hailed as a lot of things: the British Eminem, the gutter poet of a loutish generation, the long-awaited pudding proof that limeys can rap, and other such nonsense. Perhaps the hype pissed Skinner off; maybe he began to believe his own press. Either might explain A Grand Don't Come for Free, because it is both simpler -- in sound and scope -- than Pirate and much more ambitious.

Think Quadrophenia with E: A Grand tracks a week or two in the life of a drugging, drunken and nearly lovable heel; in the course of it, several affairs begin and end, a load of money goes missing and the narrator's mum gets her feelings hurt. "Blinded by the Light," which documents a night out, itches with a cherubic female vocal and an insistent rave-synthesizer sample, which dissolves into aquatic sound just as the song's narrator starts to come on to his drugs. "Dry Your Eyes" is the most impressive moment: With a simple acoustic-guitar strum, a high, delicate vocal from singer Matt Sladen and a very precise, descriptive rhyme, Skinner beautifully captures a tiny instant that devastates the narrator, as his girl tells him it's all over, babe.

Skinner's skills at tickling and tearing vowels, adverbs and lexicons is impressive enough, but his real gift is literary. Grand is cool because it's thoroughly mundane -- the narrator spends a lot of time complaining about his cell phone -- yet Skinner's ear for language and detail keeps it vivid, and hilarious. Surprisingly enough, at the end of the album, after lots of spare, excellent beats, there's even a cosmic lesson at the bottom of the pint glass: Be your own hero, and what will be will be. Call it Zen hooliganism.

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PAT BLASHILL

(Posted: May 17, 2004)