Why is The Streets’ Everything Is Borrowed on my best 1,000 albums ever list?
Mike Skinner lets the sun in on this one.
What does The Streets’ Everything Is Borrowed mean to me? What does it make me feel? Why is it exciting or compelling?
This is an optimistic Streets album, with Mike Skinner using his fascinatingly unique British talk-y hip hop flow to turn in a sun shinier direction versus the bitter vibe on The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living and young dudes on the British pub circuit hustle on the (insanely great) Original Pirate Material. There’s also a lot more live instrumentation than we’ve seen on past Streets albums, which helps to further warm up the sound and vibes.
Songs like “Heaven for the Weather” and “I Love You More (Than You Like Me)” were a little jarring for me at first, to be honest, for the reasons mentioned above (the latter one being an honest-to-god love song, even?). But once I let them wash over me I was very much taken with Everything Is Borrowed.
“The Way of the Dodo,” while intriguingly oddball, was more immediately familiar-sounding to me as a fan of The Streets. Most importantly, it’s really catchy and features some of Skinner’s best rap vocals on the album. I also spent a lot of time trying to figure out the deal with that truly strange sound effect or instrument that’s used throughout the song.
“The Sherry End” has a fun, weirdly funky vibe to it replete with a bouncing bass line and horn section.
Some stats & info about The Streets – Everything Is Borrowed
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Electronic Music, Hip Hop, Rap, British Rap
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 4 out of 5 stars
- When was Everything Is Borrowed released? 2008
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #840 out of 1,000
The Streets’ Everything Is Borrowed on Spotify
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective take on what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.