Issue 516

The Streets Computers And Blues Locked On/Warner Music Ever since Mike Skinner announced that 'Computers And Blues' would be the last Streets album, I've sat here trying to intellectualise and analyse the record, but I have to admit that the whole thing has me feeling a bit emotional. Like many, I grew up with The Streets - when 'Original Pirate Material' came out in 2002 I was 16, and it was unlike anything I'd heard up to that point in my life. Mike Skinner quickly became a hero of mine, and he continued to make records that seemed to presciently connect to my own life. So it's with a heavy weight of expectation that I approached the final Streets album, and thankfully, I'm not disappointed. For all of the Mike Skinner's we've seen over the years - the geezer, the storyteller, the burnt out rocker, the philosopher - now we're faced with Skinner as a nostalgic and a romantic. Skinner's long been obsessed with cinema and narratives, and fittingly these record functions as the epilogue to his five-album opus - if 'Everything Is Borrowed' was the joyous climax of his narrative, then 'Computers And Blues' is the tender, often funny epilogue. There are no grand statements here, just occasional positive encouragements in the form of first single Going Through Hell and odes to the Internet, Call Of Duty and domesticity. It feels as if Skinner has come full circle yet somehow progressed at the same time - opener Outside Inside returns him to the sharp sounds of 'Original Pirate Material', while the aching We Can Never Be Friends feels like the logical sequel to Dry Your Eyes, as the protagonist gets over his heartache and makes some realistic observations. Yet who would have thought that Skinner could talk about the joy he felt at witnessing the ultrasound of his child on Blip On A Screen? Or perhaps writing the most romantic song about a Facebook status ever, OMG? By the time the end too quickly rolls around with Lock The Locks Skinner, you can't help but think maybe he's tricked us all and the whole career of The Streets has been the dope-laden fever dream of the 45th generation Roman, spitting verses on Turn The Page. Ultimately though, if The Streets has, had or does mean anything to you, as it does to me, you'll find 'Computers and Blues' is music of the rarest kind: it makes you feel something. Let's just hope that Skinner doesn't stay away forever. Patrick Lang