Category: Pop culture

  • 5 Songs For Women (And An Update)

    God made man first, and decided he could do better. Here are my top 5 songs dedicated to the women in my life: Kabhi Kabhi (Mukesh) Nee Kaatru, Naan Maram (Hariharan) Amma Endru (Yesudas) Phoolon Ka Taaron Ka (Kishore Kumar) Daughters (John Mayer) What’s your favorite song about women? A cool announcement on Women’s Day…

  • Bollywood Musicians Bare Claws

    Is there something off in the Bollywood music industry? Consider this: Shaan on Twitter about Rahat getting off easy – Rahatbhai found rahat pretty easily with DRI and FERA. A Fine and he’s fine to carry on. Wonder if we were in Another Country in similar situation, would it be as easy ??!! My take:…

  • Objective Fans – An Oxymoron

    In the last couple of days, our blog got a nice spike in traffic. A quick peek at Google Analytics showed that most of the new hits were for a recent post regarding A.R. Rahman. Almost all the hits for this post came from a Yahoo Group and good ol’ Google helped me figure out…

  • People – Please Get Off A.R. Rahman’s Back

    For some reason, a Facebook status update from me about 127 Hours elicited some negative comments against A.R. Rahman. This is not the first time I have heard such comments. I am intrigued by generalizations that A.R. Rahman is overrated. Why would people say something like that despite the brilliant work he has produced over…

  • Bollywood Melodies – Book Review

    Passion and enthusiasm are uplifting and contagious traits. And it is the warmth of these qualities that you bask in as you read Bollywood Melodies by Ganesh Anantharaman. In the introduction to the book, the author confesses that he set out to write a book about the Bollywood music he truly loved – the music…

  • Rare Songs Should Remain Rare?!

    Of late, I have been following a Google group called rec.music.indian.misc (popularly referred to as RMIM). Although the platform is dated, it is a very good forum for Indian (specially Hindi film) music lovers. I think it should move to Facebook, but that’s not the reason I write this post. The reason for this post…

  • The Making Of A Fan

    We like a song because of the feelings it creates in us. But does one song alone endear us to the artist? It may, but in rare cases. What if the artist creates many amazing songs over a few years – would we become fans? Possible, but not necessarily. After analyzing my own “fanhood”, I…

  • Coke Studio In India?! Fingers Crossed

    Anyone who has seen the delectable live show program from across the border will understand why I am so excited about the news that Coke Studio may come to India! Like most Indians, I have many misgivings about Pakistan and it’s attitude towards India but I can’t help admiring, even envying, their music scene. What…

  • Auto-tune For The Common Man

    It all started with Cher’s hit song, Believe. Actually, it started before, but the producers of Believe overdid it (deliberately) and made people sit up and go “What the heck was that?”. I am talking about auto-tune, of course. The instrument that magically polishes off vocal blemishes and even adds embellishments that are not humanly…

  • Does Book Publishing Have A Better Future Than Music?

    Paul Carr of TechCrunch thinks book publishing has a better future than music because there is no assumption amongst buyers that digital books will be free. He also implies that people don’t associate any value with music. He is wrong and his argument is ridiculous: People expect to pay for e-books – It is only…