Music-Drop Magazine

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...

If any event has come to dominate 2016 it might have been the death of David Bowie. It was emotionally impacting for millions and it set the tone to that on-going meme of “Fuck 2016.” It took me maybe 3 months to listen to Blackstar, not because I was necessarily emotionally distraught but I did love Bowie, I felt a connection to him which I shared with no other artist, as a child his shadow lay over my family and as an adult he came to represent individuality and outsider feeling, two things I personally connect to.  I’ve also been fortunate enough to interview his long-time producer Tony Visconti for my university paper which has only tightened my love towards Bowie. The cover was designed by Jonathan Barnbrook, who did all his covers since Heathen Due to all of that I didn’t want to listen to this album which was instantly dubbed his best since 1980's  Scary Monsters and perhaps even before that, and I wanted to hear it without the fact that this wou...

Throughout 2016 Leonard Cohen was a constant person mentioned as “The next to die.” We heard it early in the year as the person who’ll follow Bowie, we heard it when his muse Marianne died, and we heard it when he told the press he was willing to die. Then out of nowhere he told the press Bob Dylan’s win of the Nobel Prize for Literature had given him reason to live, within weeks he released a album to great acclaim, and people talked of how great Leonard Cohen is. Then he died. Much like David Bowie he died in what could be described as a complete surprise, and just like Bowie his death took over the morbid media narrative, and just like Bowie his death elevated his album in the eyes of the public. Another common feature between Bowie’s Blackstar and Cohen’s You Want It Darker is that they both are aware of their mortality, and in almost each song you can feel how the artists’ mortality shaped it. The album artwork of the Fourteenth studio album of the Canadian...

As far as music goes I’m a pretty bias sort. I have my preferences and the music I listen to often is contained within those preferences. I like alternative rock with a lot of guitar, sometimes I try the new releases of artists I like (Typically critically acclaimed artists) but I am very dependent on publication’s tastes, and I do follow several reviewers who I know share my tastes. This sometimes means I don’t listen to some of the more obvious albums of a year so that’s why I’m doing this, to rectify my issue and listen to what could be considered representative of 2016’s sound. So I decided to look at 20 sources of the best album of the year, add them all up, do a little aggregate, and churn out a top 20. Then I want to listen to those 20 albums, give them my personal opinions while laying them out in a fashion that makes them easy for the reader/listener to access. Iggy Pop's best album since The Idiot just missed out on the top 20. The lists I chose wer...