Things of Which I May Not Speak

This week’s pick is actually two versions of the same song—Mad World.

The original is by ‘80’s pop rock duo Tears for Fears, and sounds exactly like you would expect an ‘80’s pop hit to sound. Synthesizers and percussion, and a pace meant for dance.
Continue reading ‘Music Pick: Mad World’ »

It used to be that I heard a song on the radio, or in a cafeteria, or in the soundtrack of of a movie and I would have to file it away for years until, serendipitously, I would discover the origin. This was before Google (or B.G.). Life was different back then.

I had hundreds of songs filed away in my head. You couldn’t just walk around humming the tune to everyone you met, on the off chance that they could identify it. The tune was was killing you, eating you alive. And gradually, you would forget parts of it. Then all of it. It was such a good song, but you would never find out what it was.

You couldn’t just hum it to everyone you met. I mean, you could—but good luck keeping or making friends:

Me: I remember a few words. It goes like ta-daa ta-ra-raa so much, tu-ru-ru in the la-di-da.
Person: Do I know you?
Me: Ok. Maybe you know this one. It goes tu-du-doo, I’m a ta-li-daa.
Person: Sir, step away from my ear.

I used to go on multi-decade searches for songs that really caught hold of my attention. Then, the world changed.

Now, I hear a song on the radio and I can immediately go to the radio station’s web site and see what’s playing. Or if I can’t get to the internet, I just remember the radio station and time of day and look it up later.

Or if it’s on a radio station that doesn’t have an archive, or if it’s playing in a coffee shop, or (more likely) if I’m impatient, I can just hold the-greatest-app-in-the-history-of-mankind Shazam up to the speaker. And Shazam will tell me the name and artist. Even works for obscure Hindi songs. Just the other day, I discovered “Sarki Chunariya re Zara Zara” by Himesh Reshammiya and filed it away in my head as a song I never want to buy.

Or if I just remember a snippet of a tune, I can hum it to Midomi. And Midomi will (some times) tell me the song. Or I can google the lyrics. Or if it’s playing in a movie, I just go to IMDb’s soundtrack listings.

After that, it’s a short trip to lala.com to listen to the whole song and, if I want, an even shorter one to eMusic or iTunes to buy it. The path from discovery to contentment has never been quicker or more pleasurable.

More than a decade ago, I had fallen in love with “Novocaine for the Soul” by the alternative rock band, the Eels. It was one of my favorite tracks on my “MTV Alternative Nation: Volume 2” (or was it 1?) audio cassette! I kind of lost track of them over the years, though I have caught a couple of their songs (“My Beautiful Monster” and “Cancer for the Cure”).

Now I’ve rediscovered them with their latest album: Hombre Lobo. This is a short album, only four tracks, but each one of them is great. Especially “Beginner’s Luck” and “That Look You Gave That Guy“.

That look you give that guy, I wanna see,
Looking right at me.
If I could be that guy, instead of me,
I’d never let you down.

Music Mondays is a regular post where I feature new music that I’m listening to.

This is the second video in my new series “Bollywood Roots” on tracing the roots of influences in Bollywood music:

One thing worth clarifying: I’m not trying to identify naked copies. Copied tunes are a dime a dozen and frankly, are uninteresting. What I am interested in is tracing culture and influences. When I see a Hindi music director take a snippet of a 19th century Irish song and turn it in to a modern hit, I think that is talent. You may not. But I hope you recognize the difference between this kind of an inspiration and the Pritam-style note-for-note Korean copies.

In any case, here’s the story in the video above:

This time, the search has been 11 years in the making.

The song is “Na Bole Tum Na Maine Kuchh Kaha” from Basu Chatterjee’s Baton Baton Mein starring Amol Palekar and Tina Munim. The music was by Rajesh Roshan, sung by Amit Kumar and Asha Bhonsle with lyrics by Yogesh.

I had no idea this song had any older roots than the 1979 film until 1995 when I was watching Die Hard: With a Vengeance and the tune plays throughout the film. Once more, I had a case of a western version of an Indian song appearing after the Hindi version. Clearly, the song had older roots- but I had no idea just how old. I was about to be surprised… 11 years later. It was this military beat with an orchestra playing the tune which is the main part of the Hindi song: (Read More)

AC Newman’s “Like a Hitman, Like a Dancer” is one of the most fun songs of 2009. Newman is one of the main songwriters for The New Pornographers. The song is extremely catchy. It’s from his second solo album, Get Guilty. And I just need to hear it once for it’s beat to get stuck in my head for the rest of the day.

This is part of a regular feature where I highlight new music I like. On Mondays.

Elvis Perkins in Dearland is a folksy pop band (and album), with songs written by singer Elvis Perkins. I discovered them the way I discovered a lot of new music this fall—on Emerson’s WERS radio. The song that hooked me was “Shampoo”:

“I’ll Be Arriving” is another great song from the album, best described by NME as a “New Orleans funeral march”. “Doomsday” and “123 Goodbye” are pretty good songs as well.

Elvis Perkins’ father played Norman Bates in Psycho. His mother died in American Airlines flight from Boston to Los Angeles on September 11th, 2001.

∞

Trying out a new format of recommending new music that I’m listening to on Music Mondays.

This is the first video in my new series “Bollywood Roots” on tracing the roots of influences in Bollywood music:

This is something I do all the time; and I believe a lot of people must find themselves with similar problems, so here goes.

The song in question is Aaj Unse Pehli Mulaaqat Hogi sung by Kishore Kumar, music RD Burman, lyrics Anand Bakshi, film Paraaya Dhan (1971).

For a while now, I knew that the tune of the line “phir hoga kya, kya pata kya khabar” was copied-from/adapted-from/”inspired-by” some western song. I had heard it in restaurants, ad jingles, english movie trailers- but none of these sources were enough to track down where the tune originally came from. In fact, I have a long list of tunes in my head for which I have been searching for the source for years. For years, I kept my ears open to hear this particular tune again somewhere I can ask someone what song was playing! No luck. [Read more of my journey]

And so, without any fanfare, let me introduce to you my favorite (non-Indian) music of the past decade: Continue reading ‘My Favorite Music of the Decade’ »

I have a weakness for silly, fast, loud Hindi songs which are so bad that they are good. There is a manufactured crappiness that gives them the same charm as a b-movie. It’s the lyrics plus visuals plus deliberate cheesy, campy, low-gradeness that puts them in the same category. Continue reading ‘Emotional Atyaachar: my weakness’ »

Radiohead and The Strokes are two of my favorite bands in the world, so when their leads put out solo work this fall I was anxious. I don’t want to see the bands to break up, but in absence of the real thing, I’ll take a solo. The Strokes has been on a hiatus for a few years now, and all of their members have worked on other projects in the interim.

Thom Yorke, lead singer of Radiohead, put out two singles—a double-A side single—called “Feeling Pulled Apart by Horses / The Hollow Earth“. It’s an uneven effort, The Hollow Earth is better than Feeling Pulled Apart by Horses, but neither is worth my money. But it’s Thom Yorke, and there isn’t a new Radiohead album this year, so-

Julian Casablancas’ (of The Strokes) solo is actually a full length album, called Phrazes for the Young and is a lot of fun. Especially for someone who is at this moment wearing his Is This It? hoodie. A couple of the songs have The Strokes’ sound, but the rest are a different direction. Obviously the songs with the familiar sound, like Out of the Blue, stood out the most for me but ask me after I’ve had a few more listens. This album has a lot more variety in instruments than The Strokes would normally have. Continue reading ‘Music Pick: Flying Solo’ »