Mike Skinner (musician)

This article explains the English music project. For the American rock band, see Streets .

Mike Skinner at a concert, Sydney (2011)

Michael Geoffrey "Mike" Skinner (born November 27, 1978 in London - Barnet ) is an English rapper , musician and producer who is best known under the name of his rap project The Streets . Other musical side projects are Grafiti and The Beats , the latter also being the name of his own record label .

Mike Skinner chose the stage name “The Streets” because authentic music is important to him - with texts that reflect everyday living conditions, in other words music from the streets (“Music from the streets”).

Life

Skinner was born in Barnet, a north London borough, and moved to West Heath, Birmingham , at the age of five . He himself describes his origins as: "Barratt class: suburban housing estates, not poor, but also not rich, really boring" (referring to Barratt Developments , one of the largest British construction companies specializing in residential property ). As The Streets, he raps in Cockney , the traditional dialect of the English working class.

At the age of five he owned his first keyboard . As a teenager, he built a small recording studio in his bedroom. Skinner began composing hip-hop and garage pieces with a number of other rappers from West Heath in Birmingham .

Career

Beginning

In the late 1990s, Skinner was working in fast food restaurants in order to build his own record label . On the side, he sent demo tapes to record companies. At the end of 2000, the label Locked On , which had previously celebrated success with The Artful Dodger featuring Craig David , released Skinner's single Has It Come to This .

In order to better pursue his career, Skinner moved from Birmingham to the Brixton neighborhood in the London Borough of Lambeth .

breakthrough

The single Has It Come to This marked The Streets' breakthrough. It reached the top 20 of the British singles chart in 2001.

For his 2002 debut album Original Pirate Material , Skinner wanted to develop garage music and reflect the lifestyles of British youth. It developed into a critically acclaimed and commercially successful album. In Great Britain the album was nominated for the prestigious Mercury Music Prize . Influential music magazine NME included it in the list of the five best albums of 2002. That same year, The Streets was nominated for Best Album, Best Urban Act, Best Young Artist and Best Male Artist at the BRIT Awards .

Original Pirate Material reached number 12 in the British album charts. All three singles Don't Mug Yourself , Has It Come to This and Let's Push Things Forward reached the top 40.

The success in his home country helped Skinner to release his album in the USA at the end of 2002 by the record company Vice / Atlantic . There, too, it was praised by the critics. The music magazines and newspapers Rolling Stone , Spin Magazine , The New York Times , Blender , USA Today and the Los Angeles Times named Original Pirate Material one of the albums of the year. In the electronic charts of Billboard magazine, the album rose to number 2 in early 2003 and reached the top 20 in the Independent and Heatseeker charts.

In addition to his music project The Streets, Skinner also caused a stir among his aliases Grafiti (with the single What Is the Problem? ) And The Beats (with the single The Cigarette Beat ).

The Streets released their second album in May 2004. A Grand Don't Come for Free is a concept album and tells of the loss of £ 1,000 and his attempts to find his money, but also of the ups and downs of a relationship. The album reached number 1 on the British album charts in July 2004.

The first single, Fit But You Know It , entered the British singles chart at number 4 and became his most successful single to date. He was able to increase this success with the single Dry Your Eyes . It reached number 1 on the British charts on July 31, 2004 . There was Blinded by the Lights in September of 2004.

On April 7, 2006, the third album The Hardest Way to Make was released on Easy Living . The first single from it was called When You Wasn't Famous . The second single was Never Went to Church .

On July 25, 2006, Mike Skinner broke the record for the longest music video in the world. The 20-minute video, produced for the 25th anniversary of MTV, two minutes longer than the previous leader, Thriller by Michael Jackson . The video introduces the song Deluded in My Mind and was released as a double single with Pranging Out in support of the Staying Alive Foundation , an HIV / AIDS foundation. The music video was presented on MTV Overdrive on August 1st .

On September 15, 2008, the fourth studio album Everything Is Borrowed was released in Great Britain. It was also published in Germany on September 26th. A few months before the release, the song The Escapist from the new album was available for free download on the official homepage . According to Mike Skinner, the album exudes a "friendlier, positive vibe" compared to the rather gloomy The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living .

As of April 2009, Skinner published a total of 15 new songs on Twitter. A video has also been released for the song He's Behind You, He's Got Swine Flu . In the album The Twitter , u. a. Skinner's impressions of the coming fatherhood are processed and future perspectives are considered.

End of The Streets

At the end of 2010 Skinner announced that the next album Computers and Blues would be his last under the name The Streets, because he had run out of ideas. He wants to focus on a career in the film business. As of January 2011, he released 14 songs as free download, the album entitled Cyberspace and Reds . In the same month, its management announced that Mike Skinner would no longer perform as The Streets.

On February 8, 2011, the album Computers and Blues was released in the United Kingdom. As expected, this album features three tracks from the previous album The Twitter , namely Outside Inside , Blip on a Screen and the song Trust Me . As the last release of The Streets, he presented the track Close the Book (available exclusively as a free download on the Internet) based on Turn the Page , the first track on his debut album Original Pirate Material .

In his book The Story of The Streets , published in 2012, Mike Skinner describes his musical career.

Return from The Streets

On October 9, 2017, Mike Skinner announced a live reunion tour of The Streets for 2018. They will play their first concert on April 11, 2018 in Berlin.

On December 22, 2017, Mike Skinner released the single Burn Bridges unannounced on the popular streaming platforms , which contains the song Sometimes I Hate My Friends More Than My Enemies as the B-side . The single If You Ever Need to Talk I'm Here followed on January 31, 2018 .

On May 8th 2020 the new single Where the F * & K Did April Go was released. In the song, Skinner processes his frustration with the lockdown in the corona pandemic in Great Britain.

Record label The Beats

In December 2007 Skinner discontinued the activities of his label The Beats , which was founded in 2005 and with which Professor Green and Example were under contract. However, the company has since been renamed "Mike Skinner Ltd." put into operation; in April 2012 (UK) the single Bad News by Elro was released in collaboration with The DOT. Behind The DOT are the musicians Robert Harvey from The Music and Mike Skinner.

Discography

Studio albums

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
2002	Original pirate material	-	-	-	UK10 × 2 Double platinum (80 weeks)UK	-	First published: March 25, 2002
2004	A Grand Don't Come for Free	DE25 (10 weeks) DE	AT24 (11 weeks) AT	CH34 (7 weeks) CH	UK1 × 4 Quadruple platinum (54 weeks)UK	US82 (4 weeks) US	First published: May 17, 2004
2006	The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living	DE25 (3 weeks) DE	AT42 (3 weeks) AT	CH19 (5 weeks) CH	UK1 gold (11 weeks)UK	US68 (2 weeks) US	First published: April 10, 2006
2008	Everything is borrowed	DE58 (1 week) DE	AT64 (2 weeks) AT	CH19 (5 weeks) CH	UK7th silver (5 weeks)UK	US154 (1 week) US	First published: September 15, 2008
2011	Computers and Blues	DE45 (1 week) DE	-	CH18 (3 weeks) CH	UK8 (5 weeks) UK	-	First published: February 7, 2011
2020	None of Us Are Getting Out of This Life Alive	DE30 (1 week) DE	-	CH22 (1 week) CH	UK2 (2 weeks) UK	-	First published: July 10, 2020

EPs

year	title	Remarks
2003	All Got Our Runnins	First published: October 14, 2003
2011	Cyberspace and Reds	First published: January 24, 2011

Singles

year	Title album	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
2001	Has it come to this? Original pirate material	-	-	-	UK18th silver (9 weeks)UK	-	First published: October 8, 2001
2002	Let's Push Things Forward Original Pirate Material	-	-	-	UK30 (4 weeks) UK	-	First published: April 15, 2002 feat. Kevin Mark Trail
	Weak Become Heroes Original Pirate Material	-	-	-	UK27 (3 weeks) UK	-	First published: July 22, 2002
	Don't Mug Yourself Original Pirate Material	-	-	-	UK21 (4 weeks) UK	-	First published: October 21, 2002
2004	Fit but You Know It A Grand Don't Come for Free	DE85 (4 weeks) DE	-	-	UK4th silver (14 weeks)UK	-	First published: April 26, 2004
	Dry Your Eyes A Grand Don't Come for Free	DE53 (9 weeks) DE	AT5 (20 weeks) AT	-	UK1 gold (14 weeks)UK	-	First published: July 26, 2004
	Blinded By the Lights A Grand Don't Come for Free	DE63 (6 weeks) DE	-	-	UK10 silver (10 weeks)UK	-	First published: October 4, 2004
	Could Well Be In A Grand Don't Come for Free	-	-	-	UK30 (5 weeks) UK	-	First published: December 6, 2004
2006	When You Wasn't Famous The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living	-	AT74 (1 week) AT	-	UK8 (8 weeks) UK	-	First published: March 30, 2006
	Never Went to Church The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living	-	-	-	UK20 (6 weeks) UK	-	First published: June 5, 2006
	Prangin 'Out The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living	-	-	-	UK25 (5 weeks) UK	-	First release: September 2006 feat. Peter Doherty
2008	Everything Is Borrowed Everything Is Borrowed	-	-	CH87 (2 weeks) CH	UK37 (3 weeks) UK	-	First published: September 2008

As a guest musician

year	Title album	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
2005	Routine Check A Breath of Fresh Attire	-	-	-	UK42 (2 weeks) UK	-	First published: March 2005 with The Mitchell Brothers & Kano
	Nite Nite Home Sweet Home	-	-	-	UK25 (7 weeks) UK	-	First published: September 2005 with Leo the Lion & Kano

Awards for music sales

Golden record  Australia 2003: for the album Original Pirate Material 2004: for the album A Grand Don't Come for Free  Ireland 2006: for the album The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living  New Zealand 2004: for the album A Grand Don't Come for Free

Platinum record  Europe 2004: for the album A Grand Don't Come for Free

Note: Awards in countries from the chart tables or chart boxes can be found in these.

Country / Region	silver	gold	platinum	Sales	swell
Awards for music sales (country / region, awards, sales, sources)
Australia (ARIA)	-	2 × gold2	-	70,000	aria.com.au
Europe (IFPI)	-	-	platinum1	(1,000,000)	ifpi.org
Ireland (IRMA)	-	gold1	-	7,500	irishcharts.ie
New Zealand (RMNZ)	-	gold1	-	7,500	nztop40.co.nz
United Kingdom (BPI)	4 × silver4th	2 × gold2	6 × platinum6th	2,960,000	bpi.co.uk
All in all	4 × silver4th	6 × gold6th	7 × platinum7th

Web links

• Official website (English)
• The Streets at MusicBrainz (English)
• The Streets at laut.de
• The Streets at Allmusic (English)
• Mike Skinner at Discogs (English)
• Further links on The Streets in the Open Music Project - MusicMoz (English)
• Interview with Annie Mac (English)
• Interview with Mike Skinner (PDF; 186 kB) on musictalk4uit (English)

swell

1. ^ The Observer profile: Mike Skinner . In: The Guardian , April 8, 2006. Retrieved September 15, 2014. 
2. ↑ The flame of real coolness . Time online blog; accessed on January 28, 2013
3. ↑ MTV teams up with Mike Skinner to produce the world's longest music video, for charity… MTV News (English)
4. ↑ Biography . guardian.co.uk, accessed August 24, 2012
5. ↑ Mike Skinner retires . guardian.co.uk, Mike Skinner's farewell statement from The Streets, February 7, 2011. Accessed August 24, 2012
6. ^ Mike Skinner: The Story of The Streets. Transworldbooks Co, UK 2012
7. ↑ Mike Skinner is back - The Streets Reunion announced for 2018 GETADDICTED.ORG
8. ↑ Merry Christmas, here are two new songs from The Streets - NME . In: NME . December 22, 2017 ( nme.com [accessed January 12, 2018]).
9. ^ The Streets' Mike Skinner shares new track 'Where The F * & K did April Go'. In: NME Music News, Reviews, Videos, Galleries, Tickets and Blogs | NME.COM. May 8, 2020, accessed May 29, 2020 (UK English). 
10. ^ Mike Skinner brings back the Beats record label . ( Memento of the original from September 23, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. pappzd.com, 2012 (English); Retrieved August 24, 2012 
11. ↑ the-dot.net ( Memento of the original from December 17, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English) accessed on August 24, 2012 
12. ↑ ^{a b c} Chart sources: DE AT CH UK US