New The Streets - "The Escapist"

Download: The Streets -"The Escapist"

When Mike Skinner, AKA Grime rapper The Streets, put out his first album, Original Pirate Material, file-sharing music on the internet had gone through its first incarnation (i.e., Napster), and was just on the way to its second. However, with the advent of high speed internet connections and high-quality MP3 formats, it's been easier and easier for Original Pirate Material to become, well, pirate material. But, as we all know, there is a "NEW WAY OF DOING BUSINESS", and it often involves artists themselves giving away their work for free. Sometimes its an entire record, and sometimes its just a song. With Everything Is Borrowed, The Streets new effort that's due on September 15th, Skinner is giving only a partial sample of the feast to come.

"The Escapist", the first single from Borrowed, is more in the contemplative vein of past songs like "Dry Your Eyes", though this song is closer to flat-out soul, at least musically. Lyrically, Skinner is addressing his own life, rather than a failed relationship. "I blink my eyes/this is reminding me/that life flies/in a blink of an eye" may sound redundant, but upon closer inspection, it's a sentiment filled with The Streets' trademark self-effacing wit. Over a soft drumbeat and a steadily increasing amount of instrumentation, Skinner finds the unexamined life to be worth living, but at a hard cost. Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living, indeed.

Everything is Borrowed is out Sept. 15th. Download "The Escapist" here, or listen to it at the top of the post.

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(Jonathan Graef)