Pete Droge

Pete Droge is a busy man. Not content with being part of super-group the Thorns (whose lacklustre album was released earlier this summer), he’s also headed back into the studio to record his fourth album, Skywatching. It is the kind of album that does get better with subsequent listens, yet it could never really be regarded as anything but decent. Droge’s lazy vocal delivery gets tedious and many of the songs just blend together into a big lump of blandness. Some of that can be attributed to Droge’s production, which isn’t as complex and interesting as he thinks it is, but perhaps the biggest problems is Pete himself. The strongest song, "Train Love to Stay,” is a collaborative effort with Elaine Summers, so maybe the answer lies in finding him some songwriting partners before he retires to the studio again. Or maybe he should drop the whole sensitive singer/songwriter thing and return to the earlier days where he was happier to worship at the altar in the church of pop and didn’t worry about baring his not-very-interesting soul for the world to see.