994. The Streets - A Grand Don't Come For Free (2004)

Track Listing

1. It Was Supposed To Be So Easy
2. Could Well Be In
3. Not Addicted
4. Blinded By The Lights
5. Wouldn't Have It Any Other Way
6. Get Out Of My House
7. Fit But You Know It
8. Such A Twat
9. What Is He Thinking?
10. Dry Your Eyes
11. Empty Cans

Review

Mike Skinner takes the idea of "keeping it real" to a whole different level, it is so real that it is often mundane and the whole nitty gritty of day to day life is reflected on the album. There's no ho's and guns here, just a working class guy going about his life and shit happening to him.

While this is interesting as a concept and Skinner is quite good at putting completely uninteresting things to song using plenty of humour and good arrangements, the album ends up being a little too narrative.

The album has a concept behind it, each song is like a chapter in the story of a guy who loses 1000 pounds and tries to get it back and falls in love and out of love and in love again through this. But after a while you've heard the story 4 or 5 times and really it just gets distracting a little tiring. So a great album to listen to a couple of times, or to return to once in a long while but not something to keep playing again and again.

I got the flu! *sniffle* Don't worry it's not catching through the tubes of the internets.

Track Highlights

1. It Was Supposed To Be So Easy
2. Fit But You Know It
3. Dry Your Eyes
4. Blinded By The Lights

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

In the story, the protagonist loses £1000, or a grand in slang terms and strives to recoup the money.

In the first track on the album, "It Was Supposed to Be So Easy", he attempts seemingly simple events for the day but they don't go according to plan. When he comes home he cannot find the thousand pounds he has saved and his television is broken. In the process of trying to recover the money he:

Starts seeing a girl called Simone who works in JD Sports with his friend Dan. ("Could Well Be In")

Tries to recover the thousand pounds by gambling. After a series of wins he frustratingly cannot get to the bookmaker's in time to make a big gamble. Fortuitously, the prediction is wrong — it's his lucky day. ("Not Addicted")

Is stood up at a nightclub by Simone, but passes the time drinking alcohol and taking cocaine and ecstasy; he thinks he sees Simone kissing Dan but the drug induced high distracts him before he can think about it properly. ("Blinded By the Lights")

Moves into Simone's house and finds himself comfortable smoking marijuana there, rather than drinking with his friends at the pub. ("Wouldn't Have It Any Other Way")

Argues with Simone and she kicks him out of her house. ("Get Out of My House")

Poses to impress a girl ("Fit But You Know It") in a take away restaurant during a heavy night drinking on holiday.

Flies back from the holiday and remorsefully reviews the events of the previous night during a phone call to a friend, realising he still wants to be with Simone.("Such a Twat")

Suspects his mate Scott of stealing his coat, money and girlfriend but discovers that Simone is actually having an affair with Dan. ("What is He Thinking?")

Tries to cope with his girlfriend breaking up with him. ("Dry Your Eyes").

Deals with the events of his life in one of two ways; the final track, "Empty Cans", features two endings to the plot, a bitter ending and a happy ending (the former where he and a TV repairman get into a fight over the repairman's fee, and the latter in which he reconciles with his mates and finds the thousand pounds hidden in his TV).

The B-Side to the UK single release of "Fit But You Know It" contains the song "Soaked By The Ale" (Length 3:33). The story of this song takes place between the events of "Fit But You Know It" and "Such A Twat". It documents one of Skinner's mates being annoyed at Mike for stealing a tub of ice cream whilst on holiday in Spain as a result of his excessive drinking. The chronological order is identified in "Such A Twat" where Skinner raps "And that incident with the ice cream I forgot, it all ended in our vodka".

Fit but don't you know it:

993. Liars - They Were Wrong, So We Drowned (2004)

Track Listing

1. Broken Witch
2. Steam Rose From The Lifeless Cloak
3. There's Always Room On The Broom
4. If You're A Wizard Then Why Do You Wear Glasses?
5. We Fenced Other Houses With The Bones Of Our Own
6. They Don't Want Your Corn, They Want Your Kids
7. Read The Book That Wrote Itself
8. Hold Hands And It Will Happen Anyway
9. They Took 14 For The Rest Of Our Lives
10. Flow My Tears The Spider Said

Review

All the cool kids seem to be coming from Brooklyn lately, and the Liars certainly are cool kids. Scary cool kids, but cool nonetheless, this album is just something to cherish for the simple fact that it jars so completely with most that is being done at this time.

This is an album about fear, based on the stories about Walpurgisnacht it alternately tells the stories from two points of view albeit with a clear partiality towards the witches. And it works in a lovely way.

The fact that it is based on a German story gives the album's influences a whole different dimension, with stuff like Can and Einstruzende Neubauten being completely recognisable here, but used in a way that still makes this album sound new. Not an easy listen but a very rewarding one.

Track Highlights

1. There's Always Room On The Broom
2. Broken Witch
3. If You're A Wizard Then Why Do You Wear Glasses?
4. Flow My Tears The Spider Said

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Stylistically, the album lies between the "difficult" post-punk of They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top and the ethereal neo-no-wave of Drum's Not Dead. The album received largely negative reviews and sold poorly compared to their debut. However, after the following album, Drum's Not Dead, was released, this album received more attention and the opinion turned more positive.


There's Always Room On The Broom:

992. Tv On the Radio - Desperate Youths, Blood Thirsty Babes (2004)

Track Listing

1. The Wrong Way
2. Staring At The Sun
3. Dreams
4. King Eternal
5. Ambulance
6. Poppy
7. Don't Love You
8. Bomb Yourself
9. Wear You Out

Review

Hey 10 albums to go on the list! We can start a countdown now! When this is finished I'll take a couple of days to update old albums I didn't get to review because I couldn't find them then (there's two of them I think, and I've already got them) and then I'll get into reviewing the 20 new additions to the list in the 2008 edition.

And now for something truly alternative. While that label is more often than not used for bands which sound like other 3000 bands and therefore not alternative in the least, TV on the radio is truly something different.

It is hard to categorise because it is really innovative, and really good as well, fortunately. Kind of dark electronics are propelled forward by a great voice and good lyrics in a way that harks back to some 80s stuff like The The or XTC but definitely different enough to be hardly comparable and with a post-punk influence of the Pere Ubu kind which is hardly to be found in those groups, it is also very much from the 00s. Great album.

Track Highlights

1. Staring at the Sun
2. Dreams
3. Ambulance
4. The Wrong Way

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The album was awarded the Shortlist Music Prize for 2004. It was released on CD, 12" vinyl and MP3 download formats. The CD is enhanced with two different quality Quicktime video files of the "Dreams" music video. The 12" features two records with the extra song "You Could Be Love" and a different track order from the CD.

Staring at the Sun:

991. Cee-Lo Green - Cee-Lo Green is the Soul Machine (2004)

Track Listing

1. Intro
2. Soul Machine
3. The Art of Noise (feat Pharrell)
4. Living Again
5. I'll Be Around (feat Timbaland))
6. The One (Feat Jazze Pha & T.I.)
7. My Kind of People (Feat Jazze Pha & Menta Malone)
8. Childz Play (with Ludacris)
9. I Am Selling Soul
10. All Day Love Afair
11. Evening News (with Chazzie & Sir Cognac the Conversation)
12. Scrap Metal (with Big Rube & G-Rock)
13. Glockapella
14. When We Were Friends
15. Sometimes
16. Let's Stay Together (with Pharrell)
17. Die Trying
18. What Don't You Do? (Outro)

Review

Unlike Kanye's this is a really fun and original album which does its stuff perfectly, mixing hip-hop, soul and funk into a seamless one in what sounds more like Andre 3000's half of Speakerboxxx/The Love Below than anything else.

And this comparison is really not that strange. Cee-Lo is like Outkast from the South where the hip-hop scene has been revealing itself as the really fresh third power after the East and West Coasts.

However, unlike Kanye Cee-Lo never got the sales or the popularity, something he would remedy by forming Gnarls Barkley only two years later, so I imagine he is happy with sales now. Really good album.

Track Highlights

1. Scrap Metal (with Big Rube & G-Rock)
2. The Art Of Noise (feat. Pharrell)
3. Glockapella
4. I'll Be Around (feat Timbaland)

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Though not as ambitious or abstract as his first, this album shows diversity in style; in addition to fellow Dungeon Family producers and MCs, Cee-Lo brings in outside influences such as Jazze Pha, Timbaland, Ludacris and Pharrell.


I'll Be Around:

990. Kanye West - College Dropout (2004)

Track Listing

1. Intro
2. We Don't Care
3. Graduation Day
4. All Falls Down
5. I'll Fly Away
6. Spaceship
7. Jesus Walks
8. Never Let Me Down
9. Get Em High
10. Workout Plan
11. The New Workout Plan
12. Slow Jamz
13. Breathe In Breathe Out
14. School Spirit (Skit 1)
15. School Spirit
16. School Spirit (Skit 2)
17. Lil Jimmy Skit
18. Two Words
19. Through The Wire
20. Family Business
21. Last Call

Review

Yo Kanye! I'm really happy for you. I'm gonna let you finish, but Nick Cave had one of the best albums of all time.

Track Highlights

1. We Don't Care
2. All Falls Down
3. School Spirit
4. The New Workout Plan

Final Grade

7/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The album was nominated for Grammy Award for Album of the Year, and won Best Rap Album and Best Rap Song for "Jesus Walks" in 2005. It was voted as the best album of the year by Rolling Stone magazine and in The Village Voice Pazz & Jop critics poll, was ranked #1 in Spin magazine's "40 Best Albums of the Year", and received a near-perfect 4.5 mic rating from The Source. Comedian Chris Rock has attested to listening to The College Dropout while writing his material.

All Falls Down: