Let's Talk Music

Say some may whatever, we are living the Matrix life. Now... now... before anybody starts to get thinking on that... thats not something new I may be saying... Its already been told through the Matrix triology and in various discsussion forums - formal & informal... but what I am referring to is not to that extreme... We are just stuck in a self-created vicious circle of life. And the worst part about it is that we crib, we complain about the absolute thing we are supposed to enjoy - Life!

Well... we do find those moments of joy when we break the monotony... but then why do we not take up what we enjoy doing... I believe we are scared... not sure of what... in the same way as I am right now - confused.

What I wanted to write about is Music... the word that brings smile to my face and am sure to the face of many others. I am writing out this blog to talk about music... and the us in Let's is to encourage people - whomsoever to just type down anything thats even disctinctly related to music... from something as a complex link between the hum of a fan to rhythms to a much simpler opinion about a track, album.

I am going to start by writing about the music of the Bollywood film - Rock On. The prime reason to talk about is was the inspiration from the Rolling Stone India September Issue Cover which featured the cast of the film along with the creators of the first Indian Film Rock album.

The sound in the album was definite rock... the distinct basslines... the well executed usage of symbals... and purely emphatic solo runs on the electric guitar... no fakes. I remember reading somewhere that James Horner used the actual early 20th century instruments to create the authentic feel in the music of Titanic... so it was nice not to hear any Violins (used extensively in Bollywood music) in any of the tracks of Rock On. It was also nice on the part of SEL to not emphasize the usage of synchronized sounds produced by the keyboards - another fave among the Bollywood musicians. But the best part about the whole thing was that the cast actually learnt to play their respective instruments. A refereshing thing to see was the authentic picturization of the songs in the movie... and the reason behind it was that the songs were performed without any breaks with 5 cameras... Since all knew how to play... they just got up on stage and performed the whole song in totality as any band would do... and the 5 cameras made sure the director had plenty of angles to put during the song sequence.

No... I am not promoting the music of Rock On... it is good enough in itself to get genuine appreciation... and that what I may be doing... along with adding some facts I read in Rolling Stone and elsewhere.
But all in all, it was nice to hear an album with all songs that distinctly stood out on their own but the point to ponder is that would an album like this would have done equally well as a non-film album... I realize a lot of good stuff is being written and composed by the lots of talented bands / artists we have in our own country... but just that it doesnt reach the audience in a way it should be... having the Bollywood tag attached sure helps immensely in a country that doesnt want to look beyond film music for entertainment.
And it sure is a positive sign for stagnating XXXXXWood music industry to have new genre of music being added to its reportaire. Maybe thats the best way in the end to promote "non-popular amongst the masses" genres of music like rock, jazz, blues... examples AR Rehman coming out with a Jazz track in Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na, the heavy metal song in Rock On... maybe its just a language barrier as well... with our majority population being the non-English and most of the good non-film music being made in English. Thats why perhaps band like Euphoria do get a good reception... I remember I went to this Pentagram concert in Hyderabad (for the non-starters, Vishal from the Vishal-Shekhar duo is the lead singer of this pure authentic rock / metal band) and there was someone who shouted out expecting that the band was actually going to belt out Bollywood numbers.

Being part of a rock band with experience playing in front of audiences who do not appreciate English music... (the issue was not that we were playing Rock... but maybe more that we used to play English numbers) I am not going to provide opinions of how all genres of music can be made popular or to just let it be... because frankly... true musicians play what they want to without being concerned about the quantity of the audience... and I will keep listening to all that I want to without being concerned about the quality of the creators of music.