Started with rhymes and lullabies, then tunes I hummed to, Backstreet Boys and MJ, way back in the 90's, while my elder cousins would mouth the lyrics of those english songs with panache, and I'd stare at them in wonder, thinking to myself; how cool it would be if I could sing along and dance to the songs without a single mistake. With TV to watch, I knew all hindi songs by rote. By the time I was thirteen, I was introduced to english tracks, most of them being friends' suggestions. Not to forget that I was already a fan of Britney Spears and Bryan Adams since I was twelve, maybe. It was in XI that I came to know about the Billboards, despite it being such an old thing.
I actually started listening to more english tracks around when I was fifteen, most of them by pop artistes, again. Beyonce, Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears and Bryan Adams were names I always looked up, when discussing/exchanging music. And of course, I would make sure I was the first one to tell buddies in school about some new hindi song that hit the radio. After a while, around the time when I entered college, I gradually steered away from hindi music altogether, because I'd started finding all these songs so irritating, with lyrics so cheesy, redundant tunes, and some shitty rap or background stuffed into almost each new song that came up. So I'd listen to more of pop and rock, and felt quite glad, that I'd moved on to some good music. What follows next is a list of entirely new bands/artistes that I start hearing about, and when I'd say, that I hadn't even heard of the bands before, forget having heard a track or two by them, I would get gaping mouths and stares that lasted at least a minute. To top it all, I couldn't bring myself to liking those bands, barring a rare few. after listening to them, that is. I had heard of 'The Beatles', 'U2', 'ACDC' all along, but never listened to them. And now, I don't really find their music that great. Of course, I have come to love Coldplay- not only are the lyrics understandable [in terms of accent], and make sense. Chris Martin's voice is beyond soothing and their music speaks for itself. However, I cannot bring myself to loving Bob Marley or Bob Dylan precisely Because they are so freaking popular, and every third friend I know seems to be humming their tunes every other day. And, I am in love with the hindi songs I'd run away from like two years back, and I have as many of those in my list as the number of english tracks I'd collected over the past two years. So, when someone tells me, that you take a lot of time to be able to appreciate music by, say, Porcupine Tree; or a Bob Dylan, I don't really care, because just like ice cream flavours, we all got different tastes in music, and hence no genre, artiste, band can be termed the best, because the won the Grammy or they did not. It's a long procedure that starts from forming a band, making your way through a zillion other bands who make music belonging to the same genre, and then seeing where you stand, say five years later. But not every musician on the planet goes on to give a public performance in front of a 30,000 strong jeering crowd, and become a facebook/youtube hit overnight. Just like, because Beyonce stands being the Most Beautiful woman in the world for this year according to People's magazine, one cannot say she/he has seen every woman's face on earth and hence Beyonce is undoubtedly the prettiest. Moreover, why should the faces change over the years!
Besides which, I cannot understand how one can like music belonging to only some particular genre and hate the rest. That is just impossible. I appreciate music of all kinds, a simple tune that catches my attention could become my favourite song for the next few weeks or months, or years. And of course, I am not trying to say that pop is the best genre because I listen to it a lot or rock is the best genre we could ever have. So when people talk like listening to Bob Marley or The Beatles is like a kind of musical nirvana, which you can attain by giving up other forms of music, and listening to only and only them, I might as well want to play a pop song or a hindi track just to bug them! :P
Cheers to music, lyrics matter, but if there's great music, it can bring forth a gush of tears, or set your feet tapping, or simply make you sit back and smile. Why wouldn't all artistes sit back and write poems then, if they found music so trifle unimportant?
