The Streets: "The Hardest Way to Make An Easy Living"

As difficult as it was, I knew the most entertaining thing I could do was to tell the truth. Compared to the reality, any fiction I could come up with would seem very mundane: Id never dare invent anything that crazy, because I wouldnt think anyone would believe it." - Mike Skinner on writing the third Streets album, The Hardest Way to Make An Easy Living, released April 2006.

It's been two years since the Streets second album, A Grand Don't Come For Free, and a lot has happened to Mike Skinner. First off, he went from being the witty and brash young wonder of Original Pirate Material to being the bona fide voice, not just of a generation, but of a whole class. Secondly, he became famous. Yeah, he was known before, but over the past two years, he turned into one of those untouchable celebrities, with a track record to match. Gambling, break-downs, drugs, and girls: it's the stuff tabloids live for. Turns out, it's the stuff of great records too.

Perhaps the most action-packed thirty-seven minutes in the history of pop or rap, or rock and roll come to that The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living is nothing short of a voyage to the heart of celebrity darkness, an epic of excess and personal disarray. The album starts and ends with a drug and alcohol inspired panic attack. So what else happens? Lets see. Getting a smack in the face from his manager after having a tantrum about getting beaten at table-football. Check. Losing hundreds of thousands of pounds spread-betting. Check. Driving a Ferrari round Las Vegas without a license. Check. Watching the unnamed female pop star hed been taking crack cocaine and having sex with the night before looking surprisingly presentable on CD-UK the next morning. Check. Mike Skinner isnt worried about how much trouble these songs are likely to get him into, if anything, battle-hardened by the last two years of trial by tabloid, he has clearly decided that attack is the best form of defense, preferring to get it out there himself rather than having a tabloid get it wrong later.

Mike Skinner has followed up a sweetly brilliant album about the sort of thing that might happen to him if he wasnt famous, with a viciously brilliant album about the sort of things that have happened to him now he is. And just in case anyone out there is worried that The Streets might have lost touch with his roots yes, that really is Mikes own Rolls Royce on the album cover.