In October 2002, an album was released by an English kid called Mike Skinner. He recorded it in his bedroom in Birmingham with his friends, turntables and a tape deck. He called himself The Streets and the album Original Pirate Material. He sat back, smoked a little weed, and played a little Playstation. In the meantime he was on his way to becoming the new voice of a generation.

The media hype has already been unleashed, with most of the American press dubbing Skinner "the British Eminem." This can be heard somewhat in Skinner's content and delivery, but the difference between the two is greater than the similarity. While Eminem continues to serve as the voice of an angry and destructive young urban population who must resort to crime and violence to stay alive, Skinner speaks for a different group altogether. The life that he speaks of is not necessarily impoverished, or angry. It is the monotonous, empty life of a kid who doesn't want for anything but is bored stiff by everything he has. When Mike Skinner made this record he was only 22 years old—a kid. Compared with other music being offered us by people our age, this album strikes just in the right place at the right time.

As he explains repeatedly throughout these fourteen songs, "This is a day in the life of a geezer." The album itself seems to be structured as exactly that. The first track, "Turn the Page," does not mess around. It opens with the declaration, "That's it. Turn the page on the day, walk away." Skinner's biting rhymes are underscored by an intense backing track, and this is one of the only songs on the album in which there is no chorus. He sounds as if he has come to the end of an era and is ready for something new.

But is he? Through the next few tracks, "Has it come to this?", "Let's Push Things Forward," and "Sharp Darts," Skinner's delivery becomes sharper and sharper, his cockney accent and Birmingham slang only adding more edge to his dark, urban poetry. You realize how steeped the record is in pure Britishness when Skinner fires off lines like, "I make bangers, not anthems, leave that to the Artful Dodger," and "Around here we say birds, not bitches." The fifth track, "Same Old Thing," becomes less about swagger and more melancholy.

This is when we truly come to the heart of the record: Skinner's dissatisfaction with his life. He goes out with his buddies, gets fucked up, and "offers an opinion for free on the solution to the latest news story." He paints vivid pictures of gray concrete days and raging, train-wreck nights. The same is true of the next track, "Geezers Need Excitement." The tracks fall in the order of a day. The late-afternoon lament of "Same Old Thing" has passed, and now it is late and fights are breaking out.

From here, the album goes through all the emotions one feels while winding down from a self-destructive night. The next track, "It's Too Late," is one of the best on the album. The regret is apparent in Skinner's delivery as he kicks himself over a girl he let go. "It's Too Late" sounds like spoken-word over a movie score, and a girl sings with Skinner on a hopeless chorus: "I didn't know that it was over/until it was too late/but if I ever needed you/would you be there?"

"Too Much Brandy" brings the energy back up, going through more mindless self-destruction after the sadness of "It's too Late." You can hear the exhaustion and frustration in his voice as Skinner sarcastically sums up the night.

It is now the morning after, and "Don't Mug Yourself," the funniest track, has Skinner's friends making sure he doesn't seem too eager over a girl. "Who Got the Funk" is a short jam, while "The Irony of it All," a statement about the demonization of pot smokers and the dismissal of alcoholic football fans as fun-loving, normal guys, doesn't really work with the rest of the album. It uses biting humor to convey a political message, but the rest of Original Pirate Material is not as much political as it is personal, so this track seems out of place.

The next track, however, more than makes up for it. "Weak Become Heroes" is the best track on the album. It incorporates a light, catchy piano loop with Skinner's best and most personal poetry. This is when the goal of the CD becomes apparent: it is a circle. It is easy to see how "Weak Become Heroes," the forward-looking "I will change" track, could come before "Turn the Page," when he just starts all over again. "Weak Become Heroes" will be instantly relatable to everyone out there who fears that their life will keep looping back forever, never changing.

Skinner, like much of our generation, is trying to find something to cling to, and though this sentiment is broken quickly by the second guessing that is the next track, "Who Dares Wins," he comes right back to it on the last song, "Stay Positive."

"This is about whenshit goes pear-shaped," he explains.

Though Skinner is often sarcastic, he is not here. As much as he is trying to explain his philosophy to us, he is really trying to justify it to himself. He doesn't know where his life will go, and for right now he will have to live with it going back to the beginning of this album and starting over again. He is grasping for something, as is clear in lines like, "If God exists, he still loves you."

This is where Mike Skinner captures something. He has explained the feelings of kids all over, gently. He gives us advice while knowing that he needs it as much as we do. Original Pirate Material is at once beautiful, eloquent, funny and insightful. It is not a party hip-hop record, but a bittersweet concept album about boredom and hopelessness and growing up. It cuts through the excesses of youth and hits bone. And it's about time someone our age made a record like that.