Music-Drop Magazine

In contemporary R&B there’s no one who creates records with the same emotional depth as Frank Ocean, and his follow up to Channel Orange further pushes the notion that Ocean is one of the most interesting and enigmatic artists currently recording. Frank Ocean dominated 2016 from behind the scenes. His influence could be seen on the works of Beyoncé, Kanye or Rihanna and his own album Blonde created waves in an already R&B dominated industry. Channel Orange was a spectacular record, it was the perfect album for it’s genre, an odd comparison could be done by comparing it to Radiohead’s OK Computer, which was a perfect alternative rock album. The record was released in August 2016 and included guests like Andre 3000 and Beyonce.  Now, like Radiohead did with Kid A , Ocean has changed the game in a fell swoop of beeping sounds and emotional words, with significant undertones or politics and anthems for a maltreated young adult audience. Songs l...

Colouring Book is the album whose acclaim confuses me the most. It isn’t infectious, it isn’t experimental and it doesn’t make me feel enriched by listening to it. So why is it so well regarded? I’m not Chance The Rapper’s target audience I’m not a Hip-Hop head, I don’t go out of my way to listen to mixtapes and I dislike it when religion flavours conversations to much, and Colouring Book is the most religious album I’ve heard in 2016. He’s a good rapper though and his style is likeable and I found a lot of his lyrical subject matter to be easily relatable but the thing is to often does the songwriting let down Chance’s rapping talents and too often do his good lyrics get overshadowed by larger more annoying lyrics. This is Chance's third mix tape. Maybe I’m just a cynic though, well that’s what several teachers have told me over my time in education at least. I disliked the happiness of the album, I thought it was too positive a album and I prefer a good...

From 1990 to 1993 A Tribe Called Quest was the greatest active Hip Hop group, and perhaps the greatest artist of the time. They innovated the genre with People’s Instinctive Travels and pushed the genre further than ever before with Midnight Marauders , and then they released two okay albums and called it a day in 1998. We Got It From Here… Thank You 4 Your Service is a worthy sequel to Midnight Marauder. It’s fresh, innovative, and funky and despite the album being made by 40 year olds it sounds incredible contemporary. The album artwork of their sixth studio album.  The obvious comment all reviews must say about the album though is about Phife Dawg who died earlier this year. Every review then comments on how he is the domineering voice of the album, but to me this album is the perfect collaboration and no one member shines brightest. As well as their first album in 18 years it’s also likely to be their last, and in a way that’s a good thing, because th...

It’s become incredibly popular to attack Kanye West at the moment, he’s been ridiculed for saying he’ll run for president, he did an insane rant against Jay-Z and Beyonce on stage and he’s become friends with the president elect. In fact it’s so hard not to have an opinion on Kanye West that he is now known more for his ego than his music and I can imagine a lot of the people who hate him haven’t listened to a single record of his, instead only reading headlines about him. Kanye is either insane or a great advertiser, but regardless of which of those he is, he can also create great albums, listen to his 2004’s The College Dropout or 2010’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Kanye is a great artist, but any chance on a reputation equal to his talents has long since been removed ever since he famously said President George W Bush “Doesn’t care about black people.” back in 2005. The album artwork of Kanye's seventh studio album. The Life of Pablo suffers due to...

Anderson Paak is somebody who I only knew because of one song I heard in the middle of summer, that song, The Bird , was a beautiful song and at the time I was complacent to not explore Paak’s recent album but due to my reviews I’ve ended up listening to it, and I’m unsure whether I like it or don’t care for it. Paak’s career began back in 2011 and he first gained fame in 2015 due to appearing on Dr Dre’s Compton album, which I admit I never heard.  However I was excited to find this out as I have been a fan of Dre’s 90s G-Funk sound, sadly however while Paak does investigate funk he never quite takes it and forces it to dance with him. This is the second album of the Californian Hip Hop star. The best song on the entire album was The Bird , a simple and beautiful 60s soul-esque song which opens the album and fills your mind with endless possibilities of what the album may become. Unfortunately it then lets you down, and when it doesn’t it tends to be me...