Music-Drop Magazine

Film Pitch Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman play tone deaf lounge singers. Yes Tootsie & Clyde Barrow. It's written and directed by Elaine May, half of the famous Nichols & May double act and directer of classic rom com The Heartbreak Kid. So these two lounge singers, despite their lack of talent or support, decide to take a make it or break it gig in a fictional middle eastern country in the middle of a civil war where they naturally find themselves embroiled in the political conflict and are played by both sides like CIA agent Charles Grodin and French beauty Isabelle Adjani, who plays some sort of Arabian freedom fighter who dresses as a boy for most of the film. Flawless casting, I know. Hijinks are had, feelings are felt and we all leave the cinema with our wallets full because who wouldn't want to see such a star-studded box office treat. Critics Say It was ripped to shreds. It lost money, damaged careers and has been a synonym in Hollywood for terri...

In 1973 Bowie released Pin Ups , a relatively uninspired cash grab that was meant to capitalise on his newfound success after Ziggy Stardust. The record features 12 covers of Bowie’s favourite songs from artists like The Who, The Kinks, and The Yardbirds. However two of the songs Bowie recorded on the record are covers of a less celebrated band; The Pretty Things. The Pretty Things are a band founded by Phil May & Dick Taylor (A original Rolling Stone) who helped create some of the rawest music of the pre-punk era. They were wild (They were banned from New Zealand due to their tour antics) and boundary pushing (They wrote the first ever rock opera before The Who’s Tommy.) When Bowie was a member of the London scene of the 1960s he was a close follower of The Pretty Things and this in turn lead up to his inclusion of two of their songs on his record. However is that where there relationship ends?   Oh You Pretty Things! Is Bowie’s 1971...

It’s time to look at singer-songwriter Weyes Blood’s latest record, her first sub-pop release, Titanic Rising . Weyes Blood is an artist who has been working for years at crafting her sound. She’s the sort of artist who you’ve perhaps stumbled upon and listened to once on a late night of YouTube recommendations. You sit there intrigued by her sound of the carpenters meeting the 21 st century and sit mellowed out to her songs until suddenly its over and its forgettable, it simply doesn’t grab you, assault your ears and force you to remember it. Instead you look at the name Weyes Blood and think ‘hey I kind of like her.’ For me that was my experience with her song Do You Need My Love from Front Row Seat To Earth (2016) , I liked it but I didn’t love it. It soared, it was beautiful but it was shy of great. With Titanic Rising her sound hasn’t changed exactly. She hasn’t left the Karen Carpenter comparison behind but she no longer sounds quite so pastiche. ...