May 7, 2004
Streets : Fit But You Know It
Not a 21st-century 'Girls & Boys' then. Much better than that...
Cue husky Lisa I'Anson-style voiceover: "Meet 25-year-old Birmingham-born, London-based Mike. Mike's been drinking non-stop since he arrived in Ibiza for
his annual 18-30 holiday four days ago. And he's got his eye on one of the reps…"
Mike: "(Slurring heavily) I reckon you're about an eight or a nine, maybe even nine and a half in four beers' time…" So begins Mike Skinner's comeback single, pissed-up and horny in a Balearic kebab shop. Picking up where 'Don't Mug Yourself' left off, with the addition of the guitar riff off of
the Dustbuster adverts, lyrically it's from the same place as Blur's 'Girls & Boys' in that it rips the piss out of the angry, crab-red, STD-spreading idiots on the pull in the sun, but with a sangria-sozzled twist. Whereas 'Girls & Boys' always had that "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, let's laugh at the feral, beetroot-bellied underclass thickos getting their arses out on water-slides" thing going on, 'Fit But You Know It' is
as much celebrating the random-tit-grabbing world of Ibiza Uncovered as it is mocking it.
A stonking glam-urban lager race of a choon, then, and Skinner keeps up his record of no shit B-sides ('Streets Score', the flipside to 'Don't Mug Yourself', was one of the best things he's ever done) by letting his new labelmates The Futureheads and the cream of the grime scene (Kano, Donae'o, Tinchy Stryder and Lady Sovereign) loose on remix duty. It's worth the price alone for The Futureheads' version which replaces the original backing track with surly, brittle artrock and is the best thing Sunderland's finest have done yet. Meanwhile, the Lady Sovereign mix even manages to trump the original - bouncing from MC to MC, Mike talking about wanting to get his ears pierced and Lady Sovereign contributing a response from the girl who's fit but knows it ("OI ! OI! I saw you lookin' at me!"). Not a 21st-century 'Girls & Boys' then. Much better than that. The "chipsssssss and drinkssssssssssss" are on Mikee.
Imran Ahmed
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