Day 0958 - A Grand Don’t Come For Free

The Streets “A Grand Don’t Come For Free” (2004)

To my mind The Streets are punk.  What I mean by that is that punk rock took music, stripped the “you need to be a trained musician” requirement, replaced it with an “anyone can do it” ethos and brought it down to the street level.   Likewise, plenty of Brits were hip-hop fans, being wowed by the vocal prowess of rappers but not necessarily feeling a connection with stories of street murders, gangstas etc.   

 

Mike Skinner’s musical project the Streets gave his listeners stories of trying to return a DVD in “It Was Supposed to be so Easy”, gambling (badly) “Not Addicted”, looking for a romantic connection at the bar “Could Well be in”, or of finding someone attractive but being put off by the fact that they are well aware of their looks “Fit But You Know it”.  

As well as the ‘real’ subject matter, Skinner's delivery is not really mile-a-minute spitting, nor does he have the smoothest flow.   He almost sounds like a quietly amused bloke who's wandered onto the stage at a karaoke bar.   I mean what other rapper could get away with a cracker of a line like "This night's not even begun, yes, yes, oh yay".  There's a narrative running through the songs which I vaguely picked up on.  

Still not always my cup of tea, I tend to prefer slightly more obscure or 'wordplay' sorts of lyrics rather than this wave of "I like it because they're talking about things we all know about" artists.   I do like some of his stuff though, and I can hear why others would too.

Day 0931 - Melody A.M.

Röyksopp "Melody A.M." (2001)

In my mind I had Röyksopp and Sigur Ros as being pretty much the same kind of music... not sure why, maybe it was my mind grouping Western European early 21st century artists together.

Röyksopp is definitely not in that same kind of ambient territory.  It's in the electronic genre but with a lot more prominent melody.  

The first track "So Easy" sounds a bit like Phoenix Foundation's spacier moments, or like a Blur melody with Danger Mouse production.  Pretty sure I've heard track two "Eple" before, it sounds familiar to me with its high blippy synth melody.   There' s a bit of funk in "Röyksopp's Night Out".   Whereas "In Space" is an almost Jean-Michel Jarre-esque synth vibe.

The music is largely instrumental, with vocals used more as an instrument than a focus.   The main exceptions being the laidback "Sparks" and "Remind me", and the peppier "Poor Lenno".

Day 0794 - Me Against the World

 Tupac "Me Against the World" (1995)

Tupac started off rapping with Digital Underground.  As he developed his sound, he moved away from their sound and more towards Dr Dre's developing 'G-funk' sound.

Despite having been recorded at multiple different studios and with different producers, the album has a certain cohesion.   Tupac covers a number of different sounds, including the ballad "Dear Mama" and the heavy reality of "So Many Tears".   That seems to be something that is repeatedly noted about this album, that Shakur was wearing his heart on his sleeve a bit more with these songs.  Digging deep and honest with his lyrics.

He definitely had plenty of drama to draw from, he'd shot at cops, been accused of sexual assualt and was even in prison as the album went to number one.

The album opens with an oddly prescient series of newsreaders talking about Tupac having been shot and checked himself out of hospital.  Ultimately Tupac was murdered in his mid-20s, a victim of 'the game' that he rapped about so much here.   

Day 0689 - Peggy Suicide

Julian Cope "Peggy Suicide" (1991) 

  An album from Cope's band Teardrop Explodes features earlier in this list and I did quite enjoy it; likewise, the double-album "Peggy Suicide" is a goodie.  It does suffer from that old double-album affliction of 'track fatigue', and not every song is memorable, but the sheer breadth of musical ground covered is impressive.  

I love artists who (particularly when they go solo) take the approach of just throwing everything at the wall, rather than limiting themselves musically, particularly if they have the ability to do so.

I'll say what I said with Teardrop Explodes: if another album by Cope pops up on the list, I won't be unhappy.

Day 0381 - One World

John Martyn "One World" (1977)

 
Martyn was by this time burnt out on the music industry.  A hippy folkster who'd lived several of these years in a druggy haze.  Martyn took some time out to chill out and clean up in Jamaica with producer Lee 'Scratch' Perry.

Martyn came back kicking, with this album that meshes his folk background with some modern instrumentation and interesting techniques (some songs were recorded outside at night with additional microphones set up at a distance to capture the ambience). "Big Muff" despite being the name of one of the more popular guitar fuzz pedals, is a beautifully atmospheric and melodic track.