The Streets Inspired By ‘Sweeney Todd’ | Mike Skinner Loves Tim Burton Musical
Mike Skinner of The Streets has been to see Sweeney Todd, the Tim Burton directed musical which opens in cinemas around the UK next Friday 25th January, and has declared it an “absolute inspiration”.
So does this mean the next Streets album will be more cinematic in nature?
The movie, full title Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street stars Johnny Depp, and Helena Bonham-Carter (I wonder how she, who is Burton’s partner, got the job?) and is a big screen adaptation of the Stephen Sondheim musical.
Skinner detailed his reaction to the movie on his blog, saying:
“I sat dumbfounded by the rhyme and meter of the songs. It was an absolute inspiration to experience Stephen Sondheim at work. Every single line of the songs roll off Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham’s tongues in the way I struggle to do night after day after morning.”
”I stare at my big pink book with what I want to say in one side of my brain and all this form, rhythm, rhyme and pace swirling round the other aching side. Every time Johnny Depp ended a stanza with the sharp snap of a clipped trochee I would smile at the huge screen (we were on the front row coz we got in late).”
Wow, reading that just reiterates how much of a master of his craft Mike Skinner is. He’s been classified as a modern poet, and compared to Shakespeare, and while I wouldn’t go that far, there’s no doubt he knows a well written song when he hears it.
I can’t wait to see if and how Skinner’s future song writing is inspired by the film, and Sondheim’s legacy. I don’t think we’ll see The Streets suddenly going operatic on our asses, but it’ll be interesting to see nonetheless.
[Source: NME]
3 opinions for The Streets Inspired By ‘Sweeney Todd’ | Mike Skinner Loves Tim Burton Musical
Phil
Jan 20, 2008 at 8:30 pm
That’s Bonham-Carter’s third role in a Tim Burton film and Depp’s sixth, if anything he should be married to Johnny!
I hope, however, to see the Streets go operatic… anything would be better than the droning pikey boredom that is inflicted upon us at the moment.
Paul Raven
Jan 20, 2008 at 8:39 pm
… by people who’ve never read either, for an audience who’ve never read either.
No disrespect to the whole grime/UK rap thing, but that’s a completely facile print media oranges-and-apples comparison made for the sake of headline eyeball-kicks. Skinner’s only relation to poetry is to undermine its central tenets of concision and emotional clarity.
The blog entry mentioned above says a lot more about Skinner’s understanding of viral marketing and eye for the main chance than it does his grasp of the nuances of poetic expression. Neither is more “correct” than the other, but nor are they equal and exchangeable.
The next Streets album will be full of cheerily thuggish and imbecilic stories about fights in chip shops and not knowing whether spending fifty quid on that Ben Sherman jumper is going to get you laid by that well proper bird next weekend. In short, Sweeney Todd notwithstanding, business as usual.
DaveP
Jan 20, 2008 at 8:50 pm
Phil, yeah, I was hoping no-one would notice that Depp has been in more Burton films than Bonham Carter… thanks lol
Pikey opera though, I want to see that now.
Paul, thanks for the comment, and I take your points on board.
I have read Shakespeare, and a lot of poetry, and even I as not the biggest Streets fan can see how Skinner could be called a modern poet. He might be a chav, but his lyrics tell the story of his generation.
Skinner certainly does know how to play the media, as I haven’t heard much from him for months, and now this crops up as he prepares his new album.
I’m sure it’ll be the same kind of stuff as has gone before, but the fact that he may take inspiration from a medium as diversely different to UK hip hop has got to be a good thing no?
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