Tag: pop culture

  • Thank You Steve Jobs

    For opening up a whole new world of music to me. For giving me wonderful experiences through your magical products. For being a source of inspiration and teaching me important lessons. Through your Stanford commencement speech. Through your Thoughts on Music. Through your many keynotes. Most importantly, through the act of building a great company…

  • Coke Studio India Must Be Cheered

    Coke Studio debuted in India last Friday. Armchair critics did detailed analyses proving conclusively that the first episode sucked. “Loud and empty” said one post. Another post said it “veered dangerously close to cacophony at times.”.  There were some voices that attempted to tone down things a bit including this post, this tweet and this…

  • Popular Is Not Always Good

    Stung by poor reviews of “Ready”, and outraged Salman Khan asked – “Are my fans stupid?”. My answer – Not all of them, but the truth is that there is no correlation between people’s intellect and their taste. As the saying goes, “There is no accounting for taste”. I haven’t seen “Ready” but a number of…

  • A.R. Rahman – The Spirit Of Music – Book Review

    Conversations, Not Biography “The Spirit of Music” sets the readers’ expectation right on the cover by declaring “Conversations with Nasreen Munni Kabir”. Unfortunately, a lot of people have been referring to it as ARR’s biography. It is not. It is just a very long interview. It makes for a light and entertaining read but it…

  • Why Streaming Music Is Not The Same As Owning It

    An acquaintance of mine asked me why anyone would ever buy music when there are multiple on-demand streaming services available in India for free. I can answer the question from my perspective: Quality – I am yet to see any form of streamed music that matches the quality of CD music. In India, internet service…

  • Bangalore’s Live Music Scene Making A Comeback

    Bengaluru will not let go of the Rock Capital tag easily! Despite all that transpired in the city potentially spelling doom for music lovers, it appears that there is enough and more support going around. Here ‘s a link to a blogpost  belonging to a local rising artist, Fidel Dsouza, who he talks about the new…

  • 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…