The countdown pace picks up as I’m going to start posting them three at a time:
36.
Album: Original Pirate Material — The Streets (Vice/Atlantic, 2002)
What I wrote in 2002:
It’s fitting that, after Eminem, the artist that British MC Mike “The Streets” Skinner has been most compared with is Trainspotting novelist Irvine Welsh, because the shockingly assured debut album from this 23-year-old one-man-band is pop music of tangible literary value. Original Pirate Material is a breathlessly detailed ethnography of British flat-rat culture, but its greatness lies not just in how observant Skinner’s reports are but also how modest and good-hearted, how the guy-talk of “Don’t Mug Yourself” is matched by the romantic regret of “It’s Too Late,” how the menacing nightlife vision of “Geezers Need Excitement” and substance abuse of “Too Much Brandy” are balanced against the wistful nostalgia of the rave remembrance “Weak Become Heroes.”
Song Sample: “Let’s Push Things Forward”
Single: “Smells Like Booty” — Freelance Hellraiser (2002)
Nirvana meets Destiny’s Child in a mash-up masterpiece.
