well, i found out that there was a second album by the streets...or rather, the guy that is the streets and his buddies. anyway, i liked the first album (original pirate material) a lot. it was something different. poetic verses set to nice beats and spoken by a, as far as i know at least, brixton brit. good stuff and i've recently listened to it again at work and in the car...but this is about the second album, a grand don't come for free. i read up on it before i listened to it and found, to my interest, that it was sort of a concept album. the articles i saw on various sites said that it was more of a story than a "rap" album...i wouldn't consider this or the first album rap, but i guess that's a blanket term...i'd consider it more spoken word akin to saul williams (not as good as saul, but still good), but i guess saul is also considered spoken word, too.
anyway, there definitely is a story being told in this album. from track 1, "it was supposed to be so easy" to the last track, "empty cans," the listener is lead through the life of the narrator. the story starts off with the narrator starting the day off wrong and all of the bad things that happen. it follows into his recount of a night with a girl he's keen on and she's keen to him...they talk for hours. the story progresses into the doubting of friends, loss of girlfriend, and self-loathing and depression, but the final track is great. it's long and starts out with one path that could happen and how everything falls into despair, then rewinds into another, more optimistic path.
as far as the rhymes and intelligence of the lyrics compared to the first album, i'd say they're equal. the first album had the excellence of word choice and relevance to the song, but this album has a story set to song. the music in some of the tracks is beautiful ("could well be in," "blinded by the lights," "dry your eyes," "empty cans"). i like this album quite a bit and can see it in play for a while. i'd recommend it to anyone to listen to at least once...all the way through. if you liked the first album, then i think it's safe to say that you'd like this one. if you didn't like it, listen to it anyway, it's a interesting story with pretty good insight into the "character's" life and current events. so that's that...no grade in this review, just an album that i discovered and liked and wanted to mention here.
Posted by godemperor at June 28, 2004 09:58 PM