''Original Pirate Material'' is the debut studio album by English

hip hop Hip-hop or hip hop (originally disco rap) is a popular music genre that emerged in the early 1970s from the African-American community of New York City. The style is characterized by its synthesis of a wide range of musical techniques. Hip- ...

project

the Streets The Streets is an English musical project led by vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Mike Skinner (musician), Mike Skinner. The project was founded in the early 90s, while Skinner was still a teenager; however, no music would formally eventuat ...

, released on 25 March 2002. Recorded mostly in a room in a south London house rented at the time by principal member Mike Skinner, the album is musically influenced by

UK garage UK garage, abbreviated as UKG, is a genre of electronic dance music which originated in England in the early to mid-1990s. The genre was most clearly inspired by garage house and jungle production methods, but also incorporates elements from ...

and American hip hop, while its lyrics tell stories of British working-class life. It was supported by four singles: "

Has It Come to This? "Has It Come to This?" is a song by English rapper and producer Mike Skinner under the music project the Streets. It was released in October 2001 as the lead single from their debut album '' Original Pirate Material''. The song reached number 18 ...

", "

Let's Push Things Forward "Let's Push Things Forward" is a song by English rapper and producer Mike Skinner under the music project the Streets. It was released in April 2002 as the second single from their debut studio album, '' Original Pirate Material''. It peaked at n ...

", "

Weak Become Heroes "Weak Become Heroes" is a song by English rapper and producer Mike Skinner under the music project the Streets. It was released in July 2002 as the third single from their debut studio album, '' Original Pirate Material''. Background The song con ...

", and "

Don't Mug Yourself "Don't Mug Yourself" is a song by English rapper and producer Mike Skinner under the music project the Streets. It was released in October 2002 as the fourth and final single from their debut studio album, '' Original Pirate Material''. It reache ...

". The album originally rose to number 12 on the

UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is the United Kingdom's industry-recognised national record chart for album, albums. Entries are ranked by sales and audio streaming. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the O ...

in 2002, and then peaked at number 10 in 2004 following the release of the chart-topping second Streets album '' A Grand Don't Come for Free''. It re-entered several charts in April 2022, following its reissue on orange vinyl for 2022's

Record Store Day Record Store Day is a semi-annual event established in 2008 to "celebrate the culture of the independently owned record store". Held on one Saturday (typically the third) every April and every Black Friday in November, the day brings together f ...

. ''Original Pirate Material'' received widespread critical acclaim, with many reviewers praising the originality and humour of Skinner's lyrics, and subsequent critics' polls have placed it among the best albums of the 2000s.

Background

Skinner has stated that his main early influences were from the United States, in particular

Wu-Tang Clan Wu-Tang Clan is an American hip hop collective formed in Staten Island, New York City, in 1992. Its members include RZA, GZA, Method Man, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Inspectah Deck, U-God, Masta Killa, and, until his death in 2004, O ...

rappers such as

Raekwon Corey Woods (born January 12, 1970), better known by his stage name Raekwon ( ), is an American rapper. He rose to prominence as a founding member of the hip-hop group Wu-Tang Clan, which achieved mainstream success following the release of the ...

and

RZA Robert Fitzgerald Diggs (born July 5, 1969), better known by his stage name RZA ( ) or the RZA, is an American rapper, record producer, composer, actor, and filmmaker. He is the '' de facto'' leader of the hip hop group Wu-Tang Clan, having pro ...

, as well as East Coast rapper

Nas Nas (born 1973) is the stage name of American rapper Nasir Jones. Nas, NaS, or NAS may also refer to: Aviation * Nasair, a low-cost airline carrier and subsidiary based in Eritrea * National Air Services, an airline in Saudi Arabia ** Nas Air (S ...

's album '' Illmatic''. However, Skinner attributes the album as emerging from the

scene of the late 1990s. His stance when making the album was to combine the UK garage sound with a lyrical content about "all the little adventures you go on" rather than the style of UK hip hop, which he accused of being "someone from

Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of symbols, often specifically those of a written language, by means of Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifacete ...

pretending to be Biggie or Q-Tip". Journalist

Simon Reynolds Simon Reynolds (born 19 June 1963) is an English music journalist and author who began his career at ''Melody Maker'' in the mid-1980s. He subsequently worked as a freelancer and published a number of books on music and popular culture. Reynold ...

identified the album's lyrical content as capturing UK garage's "submerged reality" as a genre not based in

nightclub A nightclub or dance club is a club that is open at night, usually for drinking, dancing and other entertainment. Nightclubs often have a Bar (establishment), bar and discotheque (usually simply known as disco) with a dance floor, laser lighti ...

s. Outside London in the late 1990s, UK garage was rarely played in clubs but was instead found on

pirate radio Pirate radio is a radio station that broadcasts without a valid license, whether an invalid license or no license at all. In some cases, radio stations are considered legal where the signal is transmitted, but illegal where the signals are rec ...

stations, reflected by the album's title.

Recording

Recording for ''Original Pirate Material'' lasted over a year, with Skinner recording the bulk of the album in the room he was renting in a house in

Brixton Brixton is an area of South London, part of the London Borough of Lambeth, England. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. Brixton experienced a rapid rise in population during the 19th century ...

in south London. The instrumental tracks were created on an

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

ThinkPad ThinkPad is a line of business-oriented laptop and Tablet computer, tablet computers produced since 1992. It was originally designed, created and manufactured by the American IBM, International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation. IBM Acquisit ...

, while Skinner used an emptied out wardrobe as a vocal booth using duvets and mattresses to reduce

echo In audio signal processing and acoustics, an echo is a reflection of sound that arrives at the listener with a delay after the direct sound. The delay is directly proportional to the distance of the reflecting surface from the source and the lis ...

. Direct influences on the album included the 2000 film ''

Gladiator A gladiator ( , ) was an armed combatant who entertained audiences in the Roman Republic and Roman Empire in violent confrontations with other gladiators, wild animals, and condemned criminals. Some gladiators were volunteers who risked their ...

'', which inspired the lyrics of "Turn the Page", the opening track of the album. He eschewed analogue recording equipment and recorded and mixed the album entirely on

Logic Pro Logic Pro is a proprietary digital audio workstation (DAW) and MIDI sequencer software application for the macOS platform developed by Apple Inc. It was originally created in the early 1990s as Notator Logic, or Logic, by German software devel ...

, a

digital audio workstation A digital audio workstation (DAW ) is an electronic device or application software used for Sound recording and reproduction, recording, editing and producing audio files. DAWs come in a wide variety of configurations from a single software pr ...

Artwork

The cover artwork depicts the south face of the Kestrel House

tower block A tower block, high-rise, apartment tower, residential tower, apartment block, block of flats, or office tower is a tall building, as opposed to a low-rise building and is defined differently in terms of height depending on the jurisdiction. ...

City Road City Road or The City Road is a road that runs through central London. The northwestern extremity of the road is at Angel where it forms a continuation of Pentonville Road. Pentonville Road itself is the modern name for the eastern part of Lo ...

, London at night. The photo was taken in 1995 by German photographer Rut Blees Luxemburg using an eight-minute exposure.

Critical reception

''Original Pirate Material'' was hailed by the British music press upon its release. ''

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming and culture website, bimonthly magazine, and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a "Rock music, rock inkie", the ''NME'' would be ...

'' said that the album "represents a brilliant break with cliché ... kinner isone of the most original pop voices for years... By turns dark, funny and heartbreaking, the songs on ''Original Pirate Material'' are snapshots of ordinary life as a young

Midlands The Midlands is the central region of England, to the south of Northern England, to the north of southern England, to the east of Wales, and to the west of the North Sea. The Midlands comprises the ceremonial counties of Derbyshire, Herefor ...

resident, set to innovative two-step production: tales of love, going out, being skint, getting drunk, and eating

chips ''CHiPs'' is an American crime drama television series created by Rick Rosner and originally aired on NBC from September 15, 1977, to May 1, 1983. After the final first-run telecast on NBC in May 1983, the series went into reruns on Sundays fr ...

. It's Streets by name, and streets by nature, and it's great." '' Q'' called Skinner a "vital new voice" and described ''Original Pirate Material'' as "starkly observed vignettes ... this debut wittily and wisely documents young lives spent in piss-poor pubs, estate bedrooms and kebab shops... It could easily, but somehow never does, degenerate into the kind of 'street poet' blather TV news editors think spices up election coverage." ''

Mojo Mojo may refer to: * Mojo (African-American culture), a magical charm bag used in Hoodoo Arts, entertainment and media Film and television * ''Mojo'' (2017 film), a 2017 Indian Kannada drama film written and directed by Sreesha Belakvaadi * '' ...

'' said that Skinner "favours a winningly downbeat brand of urban realism, set to minimal, pounding drums ... A lot of his urban vignettes fall somewhere between " The Message" and

the Specials The Specials, also known as the Special AKA, were an English 2 tone and ska revival band formed in 1977 in Coventry. After some early changes, the first stable lineup of the group consisted of Terry Hall and Neville Staple on vocals, J ...

' "

Ghost Town A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...

". But their very ordinariness and the brutish, unadorned simplicity of the music is part of their appeal, evoking the everyday tedium of ''real'' 'youth culture' ... A uniquely British voice." ''

Spin Spin or spinning most often refers to: * Spin (physics) or particle spin, a fundamental property of elementary particles * Spin quantum number, a number which defines the value of a particle's spin * Spinning (textiles), the creation of yarn or thr ...

'' said, "Mike Skinner ... could be the most gifted rapper London has ever produced, except that he doesn't really rap – he pontificates, spins spoken-word yarns, and kicks running commentary. Hip-hop – and Britain's equally bling-fixated 2-step-garage scene – has shaped Skinner's sound, but he's too earnest to reproduce their bluster. He's an observant, asphalt-level 'geezer' – Brit slang for everyman – set apart by the sharpness of his lens, not the force of his flow. On ''Original Pirate Material'', Skinner nails the quiet desperation of the white working class like a pub-hooligan Marshall Mathers, with all of Slim Shady's good humor and none of his insanity." Contemporary reviews for the album commented on its DIY aesthetic and lyricism. ''Stylus Magazine'' said that the album "combines the boy-next-door DIY of US

garage rock Garage rock (sometimes called garage punk or 60s punk) is a raw and energetic style of rock music that flourished in the mid-1960s, most notably in the United States and Canada, and has experienced a series of subsequent revivals. The style is ...

with the sound of

and displays an alchemic ability to turn the humdrum of everyday life into a record that is at times empowering, hilarious, melancholy, awkward, and charming."

Accolades

Since its release in 2002, ''Original Pirate Material'' has received several accolades. In March 2003, ''NME'' placed ''Original Pirate Material'' at number 46 on their list of the "100 Best Albums of All Time". They subsequently placed the album at number nine in their list of the "100 Best Albums of the Decade". ''

Observer Music Monthly ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. First published in 1791, it is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper. In 1993 it was acquired by Guardian Media Group Limited, and operated as a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' ...

'' ranked it as the best album of the 2000s. Journalist Simon Reynolds also placed the album at the top of his list of his favourite albums of the 2000s, with a "special 'in a class of its own' award". ''

Pitchfork A pitchfork or hay fork is an agricultural tool used to pitch loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. It has a long handle and usually two to five thin tines designed to efficiently move such materials. The term is also applie ...

'' placed the album at number ten on their list of the top 100 albums of 2000–2004; they later placed it at number 36 on their list of the top 200 albums of the 2000s. In 2022,

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. The magazine was first known fo ...

ranked the album 139th in their list of ''The 200 Greatest Hip-Hop Albums of All Time.''

Track listing

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

Release history

References

Bibliography

External links

Information on Kestrel House, the London tower block depicted on the album's cover
{{Authority control 2002 debut albums 679 Artists albums Albums produced by Mike Skinner (musician) The Streets albums