Track Listing

1. Turn The Page
2. Has It Come To This
3. Let's Push Things Forward
4. Sharp Darts
5. Same Old Thing
6. Geezer's Need Excitement
7. It's Too Late
8. Too Much Brandy
9. Don't Mug Yourself
10. Who Got The Funk?
11. Irony Of It All
12. Weak Become Heroes
13. Who Dares Wins
14. Stay Positive

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #580 in Music
• Released on: 2002-03-25
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Explicit Lyrics
• Dimensions: .19 pounds

Amazon.co.uk Review
In a thrilling UK Garage scene, blighted only by a reliance on drippy soul cliché and tiresome braggadocio, The Streets' eminently quotable Mike Skinner may just be the voice to take it to the next level with Original Pirate Material. This debut is a staggeringly eloquent and fearlessly honest snapshot of gritty street-level existence, as experienced by an ordinary bloke. At first listen, the Birmingham-born Skinner's cheeky cockney affectations grate slightly. But for every line that makes you squirm, there's 20 that drop your jaw. "Has It Come To This?" is "A day in the life of a geezer", a seductive encapsulation of London lifestyle, presented raw as a bootleg, but bulging with sharp wit and feverish detail. "Stay Positive" weaves a fearful tale of heroin addiction, Skinner sneering "I ain't no preaching fucker/ An' I ain't no do-goodie-goodie either/ This is when shit goes pear-shaped". And "The Irony of It All" presents a beguiling case for legalisation, presenting a fictional exchange between a beered-up, self-righteous lager lout and a fey student weed enthusiast. Original Pirate Material is a milestone, the real voice of British youth set down on record. Don't miss this.--Louis Pattison

CD Description
This is the debut release from The Streets, aka Mike Skinner. Tales of inner-city life are mixed with garage beats and rumbling basslines - but Skinner offers a different take on the urban garage style made popular by So Solid Crew. The single, 'Has It Come To This' is included.

Customer Reviews

Another Perfect 5
I'm sorry, but this album is possibly the best in the world. I'm a Rock Fan, i hate Garage. I came across this guy on Steve Lamacq's Evening Session on Radio 1. His First Two singles are poor in my opinion. However "Let's Push Things Forwards", "Stay Positive", "Too Much Brandy" and "Irony of it all" Are some of the best songs ever. Well worth the money. Buy it people!

Sign O' The Times for a new century
This is the first essential album of 2002 and will encapsulate the summer sound as it's popularity grows and grows. Their ability to delivery a message in song, while still remaining utterly musical, reminds me of The Specials and The Clash, pure quality.

Please don't be put off by the "garage" element, as someone who traditionally dislike garage music, I have found this album refreshing, funky and utterly essential.

Buy it early, brag about loving it, turn people on to it and then sit back and bask in the glory of having bought this poetic album into people's lives. Practically perfect.

Masterful debut from Birmingham's new Wonderboy
Ever since garage erupted a couple of years ago, the scene has been looking for its REAL stars. They thought they found one in Craig David, but then the bobble-headed one degenerated into a more easy niche - american styled R'N'B with garage-lite beats. This was Mainstream Garage and has continued to polloute the airwaves with a slew of similar acts such as Mystique, DJ Luck etc. Then garage fans starved for thrills were confonted with a new garage, a dark garage, a dirty garage, a So Solid Garage. They were the next big thing and were hyped to be Britain's ten-year late response to America's NWA. They were shown up, however, to be as one-dimensional as the overground garage supremos they were riling against in their 'playa-haters' anthems.

Now, dance music's brightest star. No hype, no fan-fares, just pure genius. UK Garage finally has a world-class spokesperson and is in the shape of 22-year old Mike Skinner. Just when you thought there were no surprises left in modern pop music, an artist comes along and disproves that notion completely. He has single-handedly restored hope in the genre of British dance music and, particularly, UK Garage.

Packed to the rim with sharp one-liners, vicious beats and brilliant production, Original Pirate Material is a masterpiece of urban soundscaping and real-life lyrical vignettes concerning wild nights in Amsterdam, addiction, fighting in the pub and getting wasted. Skinner delivers these lyrics in his very own style, practically spitting them out in his Brummie accent and not trying to appeal to a mass audience by Americanising his accent. Meanwhile, there is Specials-style ska, 'Blue Lines'-era Massive Attack and skittering two-step playing in the background. From the apocalyptic (Turn The Page) to the ridiculously comic but needle-point sharp (The Irony Of It All) and the sublime (Weak Become Heroes) to the hilarious (Don't Mug Yourself), this album is all killer and no filler and gets better with each listen. This is an album that will soon be regarded as a classic. Buy into it now and remember it as it happened.