So why is The Streets’ Original Pirate Material on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
“Let’s Push Things Forward” is one of my favorite songs of all time.
It’s a perfect song for me specifically.
It’s pulsing and slightly psychedelic, a little bit ska-flavored, hip hop spun up from the exotic-to-Yank-ears UK garage movement, wizardry produced by a skinny kid from Birmingham named Mike Skinner.
And like Beck, Skinner has the magical ability to string together lyrics – with an unusual but effective talk-rapping style – that are both ear pleasingly nonsensical and yet deeply resonate all at once.
To illustrate how much “Let’s Push Things Forward” means to me, many years ago I pulled the “Forward” out of the song title, purposefully misspelled it, and used it to create a side hustle business that a close friend of mine and I plied away at for years. My professional e-mail address still leverages it to this day.
As we progress to the checkpoint
I wholeheartedly agree with your viewpoint
But this ain’t your typical garage joint
I also have to point out that Skinner takes a moment to distinguish his brand of hip hop versus some of his American contemporaries in noting around here we say birds, not bitches.
Most of all the song title just speaks deeply to who I am, how I’m wired on the deep-down level: keep pushing forward, no matter what.
Maybe there’s something special about it too that relates to me as a writer, and a “creator” as they say these days. No matter how many thousands, millions of words you push out in a lifetime, you always start from the first word of the new thing, the new sentence, the new page, the new project every single time.
The only thing you can do is push things forward, one character and word at a time.
And on a life philosophy level, I’ll lean on my man GaTa from the great FX comedy show Dave:
You fall down seven times. You get up eight.
That’s what this track means to me.
This ain’t a track, it’s a movement
Or to pull another great line from Game of Thrones: “What do we say to the God of Death? Not today.”
Let’s push things forward.
It’s inspired that this track segues into the pub bangers “Sharp Darts” and “Same Old Thing” on the album’s track listing. These are all aggressive beats, record scratches, and hip hop basslines booming.
Before The Streets broke through with Original Pirate Material in 2002, British hip hop had mostly lurked in the underground scene. And then suddenly, Mike Skinner brought this concoction of UK garage, hip hop, and working bloke storytelling into the mix.
His laid-back talk/rap delivery and deadpan wit paved the way for grime (a blend of UK garage, jungle, and hip hop) and for later artists like Dizzee Rascal and Kano, while also influencing indie storytellers like alt rockers Arctic Monkeys and Jamie T.
Production-wise, Original Pirate Material still feels compellingly claustrophobic and bursting with life, like a pirate radio transmission beamed from a London tower block that doubles as a banging underground club.
Lyrically, it has a number of tales of young blokes out on late-night pub prowls with little money and even less prospects when it comes to the ladies and in life. As a dude who once lived outside of London and who may or may not be able to relate to this very specific phase of young dude life, I can report that it’s good stuff. More examples: “Too Much Brandy” and “Don’t Mug Yourself.”
In its own little way, my body was trying to say
That you’d better stop drinking brandy
The latter is particularly catchy and fun.
And then I love the notion of “only got coinage to show” – meaning you’re down to just one-pound coins, cash-wise – in the cinematic-feeling and driving “Same Old Thing.”
“The Irony of It All” shows Skinner’s facility to create an outstanding, funny, and pointed narrative that would surely impress the likes of Eminem.
The track pings between two characters: Terry “the law abider” who is all about “real manhood,” “downing eight pints,” and then getting into fights, and Tim, the self-admitted “criminal” who enjoys “taking pride” in his hobby, which is smoking pot, talking about Einstein and Carl Jung, and playing video games while hanging out with friends.
The two “debate” back and forth about life philosophies, with Terry getting progressively unnerved and volatile in the face of Tim’s calm, intellectual defense of marijuana as a far safer and peaceful lifestyle versus the health risks to oneself and others that alcohol poses.
It’s a masterclass in songwriting that also manages to be consistently entertaining and fun.
Some stats & info about The Streets – Original Pirate Material
- 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 – 5 out of 5 stars
- When was Original Pirate Material released? 2002
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #39 out of 1,000
The Streets’ Original Pirate Material on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from The Streets’ Original Pirate Material that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
Let’s push things forward.
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 review of 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.