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7 January 2008

Mike Skinner Slams 'Old-Fashioned' Record Labels


Streets and Beats front man Mike Skinner believes the reason for him closing 'The Beats' is "down to the fact that the traditional record label is dead. The Beats represents me growing up. Spectating was more nerve-wracking than performing." Eh?
So it's nothing to do with poor sales leading to your loss of funding from Warner Music Group then Mike?

From the last 5 streets' singles, the best selling one peaked at number 8, followed by singles reaching 10, 20, 25 and 30.

I don't think it's just me that believes the last 2 Streets albums kinda stank (ESPECIALLY the last one).

Not to worry though fans! The Streets front man has the solution, and is wrapped into 2 sentences so here goes:
"What I'm doing now is looking for the thing you can create that embraces the next generation. I'm really into what you can do online and I'd rather be at the centre of it."

So why couldn't Mike do this before? Perhaps he spent his budget on questionable releases and signings...Props to prof. green but we all know battle rappers rarely make it. I say rarely because Eminem is the exception that proves the rule, and he's sumthing special in a country where even the most out of touch people knew who his mentor Dr Dre was. Over here, the same formula doesn't work, though im unproven on this so won't pass any judgments yet.
As for The Mitchell bros, they're good but were stuck in the twilight zone. Not quite pop, not quite hip hop and not quite grime. That only worked for Skinner in his early days because of the freshness of his sound. Routine check & Harvey Nicks were hot songs but blatently aimed at the download generation, before iTunes took hold of certain peoples' bank accounts. And as for Example...I'll leave you with this perfect peice of self referential music.



In summary: R.I.P The Beats. Good effort. But we're just as bemused as these guys about your model for commercial and/or underground success (if the latter exists in this country)...

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