The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living - The Streets
The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living Image
Metascore
72 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 36 Critics What's this?

User Score
7.1 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 27 Ratings

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  • Summary: Unlike his previous release (which told an album-length story about a fictitious character), Mike Skinner's third Streets album is autobiographical in nature, dealing with the myriad problems that result from being rich and famous.

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 26 out of 36
  2. Mixed: 9 out of 36
  3. Negative: 1 out of 36
  1. Village Voice (Consumer Guide)
    100
    His comic timing and mixture of slangs--not to mention his musical conception... are all so much more fully developed that he's actually made a record that's fun to play in the background.
  2. New Musical Express (NME)
    80
    The beats and lyrics get better with each listen.
  3. Urb
    60
    When The Streets gets lazy, he becomes less of an artist and more like a novelty. [May 2006, p.80]
    All this publication's reviews
  4. Stylus Magazine
    25
    The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living is an exercise in empty nothingness. But it’s not Bacchanalian coked-out excess nothingness, it's the joyless hollow-eyed actions of a man who is waiting for the next fix and doesn't care what bullshit has to come out of his lips in order to get paid.

See all 36 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 11 out of 16
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 16
  3. Negative: 3 out of 16
  1. Duncan
    10
    Brilliant. His best album yet.
  2. joshw
    8
    good fun
  3. AViewAM
    7
    When I heard "Grand" (yes, I started with the second album first) I thought I was hearing a whole new phase of hip-hop blowing out of my speakers. Turns out I was partly right. Not as energetically powerful as OPM or as flowing lyrical as Grand, Hardest Way still manages to deliver the goods with even higher prod. values than before. Anyone who gives this album lower than a 6 has obviously come down with a nastly case of brain death.… Expand
  4. jw
    4
    The fall is pronounced this time. Whereas "A Grand.." was mostly just a different animal (as Jarrod suggests below, an 8 to follow the 10 of "Pirate Material"), this one simply does not measure up. I haven't listened to it enough yet to let it grow on me, but I don't foresee it doing much good. Only "Two Nations" brings to mind past glory, and a 1 to 1 album-to-good-song ratio never makes one feel good about the purchase. Buy the first two, avoid this one.… Expand

See all 16 User Reviews

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