Album:

The Streets - The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living

It's tough to rhyme about the hard times in life when your celebrity grows everyday. But for the Streets your celebrity is based off of the trials and tribulations of life in the working class. Mike Skinner, who is the Streets, found something just as troubling as rising up. Staying there. This is not exactly keeping it real when he is complaining about not being able to do coke because everyone has their camera phones out. It is okay if he talks about how other celebs don't recognize him because he still looks like a working class white boy with a bad five o'clock shadow and an even worse sense of style. There is something I can laugh at. The Streets continue to use the catchy beats from their last albums, so that element remains firmly intact. Skinner still has a lot of things on his mind, but not all of them are worth listening to. "The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living" is a brilliant song because Skinner manages to convince you that his life really hasn't changed since he became a celebrity. "Two Nations" is a much more difficult pill to swallow because Skinner is bitter about not being a commercial success in the U.S. so he spends a track just unloading on America, not cool, not interested. While the album has great songs and interesting ideas it has holes in it unlike The Streets' previous two albums. To get back on track maybe Skinner could do with some humility.