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By Pranav jain
Pranav Jain is an incoming civil servant and in addition a columnist.
“Gori Teri Aankhen Kahein, Raat Bhar Soyi Nahin… Chanda dekhe chupke kahin, aur taare jaante hain sabhi…” – Fortunate Ali
As soon as upon a time, lengthy, way back, Indian music existed exterior the lengthy shadow of Bollywood. Neither was it tailor-made for the large display screen, nor did it carry the burden of the movie’s plot. It was not lip-synced by heroines in chiffon sarees operating by way of Swiss fields. It was uncooked, catchy, magnetic, and unusually intimate. And within the late Nineties and 2000s, we known as this style of music – Indipop.
Indipop was a whole temper which characterised a newly liberalised nation’s musical adolescence. It allowed millennials and gen-z to leap from the period of Doordarshan to MTV and insurgent towards the cloistered monopoly of playback singing. Its earliest stars weren’t identified names however musicians working exterior the confines of the movie business.
Baba Sehgal rapped “Dil dhadke ” earlier than India even understood what rap was. Alisha Chinai sang “Made in India” with a boldness not heard or seen earlier than in India. Hariharan and Leslie Lewis blended Carnatic classical with English hooks because the enviable ‘Colonial Cousins’ to present us the earworm: “One thing about the best way you smile, I could by no means know the rationale why…Sa Ni Dha Pa Ma Ga Ma Ga Re Sa…Oh Jaana…”.
Daler Mehndi’s “Hand Ta Ra” introduced Punjabi people into the mainstream with a form of swagger that refused to apologise. Shaan’s voice in “Tanha Dil, Tanha Safar” turned the motto of teenage loneliness. KK’s “Hum, rahein ya na rahein kal, kal yaad aayenge ye pal ” turned the anthem of drifting from mates you didn’t know how one can say goodbye to.
Falguni Pathak was everybody’s large sister, and her songs like “Maine Payal Hai Chankai” gave a gendered perspective to music. Dr. Palash Sen and Euphoria of their chartbuster “Maeri aap hello haansdi, maaeri aap hello rondi, maaeri yaad vo yaad vo aaeri” made a whole technology really feel nostalgic and romanticised Indian railways. Silk Route’s “Dooba dooba” gave us the distinctive voice of Mohit Chauhan and Rabbi Shergill’s “Bulla ki jaana”, rooted in Bulleh Shah’s 18th-century verse, confirmed that India’s pop sensibility might comprise each poetry and philosophy in the identical breath.
The Indipop panorama was additionally populated by experimental music. Neeraj Shridhar, by way of Bombay Vikings, rewrote the principles of language in music. With loving remixes of retro songs like “Kya soorat hai” and “Woh Chali”, he mashed up English and Hindi to convey a brand new form of playfulness to Indipop. He knew his viewers, the English-educated Indian teen making an attempt to make sense of each Britney Spears and Asha Bhonsle. Viva, India’s first all feminine band, with their breakout hit “Hum naye geet sunayin”, was equal components empowerment and bubblegum gloss. Band of Boys, with their hits “Meri Nend” and “Gori”, was imitated by boys throughout faculties in India.
Visually, too, Indipop formed an aesthetic. The music movies weren’t elaborate dances however quick tales – suppose Aryans’ “Ankhon mein tera hello chehra” which explored the pangs of uninfatuation. Bally Sagoo’s “Gur Naal Ishq Mitha” and “Aaja nachle” set the template for contemporary Indian weddings. The movies have been wealthy with craving, humour, storytelling, and most significantly, weren’t making an attempt to go viral.
So what occurred? The place did it go? Why did this period of non-film music vanish nearly in a single day? The solutions are many, and like most elegies, they don’t seem to be with out blame.
One major motive was the commercial absorption of Indipop. Bollywood, ever hungry, seen and absorbed these artists who, understandably, took the extra profitable and visual path – playback singing. Over time, the road between Indipop and movie music blurred, and what made Indipop particular, its autonomy, slowly withered away. Fortunate Ali was singing in Kaho na pyaar hai; Shaan turned the voice of Saif Ali Khan, and Sonu Nigam turned, arguably, essentially the most versatile and soulful singer of Bollywood.
Subsequent got here tv and actuality reveals. With the arrival of Indian Idol and SA re ga in PAa brand new crop of artists emerged – extremely gifted however systemically educated to aspire in the direction of playback. The dream was now not to have your personal album, however to sing for Shah Rukh Khan. This marked a cultural shift whereby music turned aspirational solely when tethered to cinema. Everybody needed to be the following Sonu Nigam or Shreya Ghoshal. Nobody needed to be the following ‘themselves’; and even when they did, the system didn’t know how one can nurture them.
There was additionally technological disruption. Indipop thrived on cassettes and CDs. Bodily media rewarded full albums as you obtain the entire thing, not only a single observe. However with the rise of digital downloads and streaming, consideration spans shrank. Labels stopped funding complete albums, and singles turned the norm. Streaming turned listening into shuffle lists, and the sluggish burn that Indipop thrived on was changed by the race for the following viral hook.
Worse, there was a philosophical shift. The soul of Indipop didn’t match the brand new world of Instagram bangers. Even the revival of indie music – suppose Prateek Kuhad and Anuv Jain – feels auto-tuned and algorithmic. The place “Piya Basanti ” might play in each a Delhi autorickshaw and a Mumbai convent faculty, a lot of immediately’s indie music remains to be class-segmented.
And but, the ghosts of Indipop stay. Ask anybody who got here of age in that window, between Nirma advertisements and Orkut, and they’ll let you know a couple of track that also lives of their bloodstream. Each every so often, you hear Shankar Mahadevan’s “Breathless“Or shubha mudgal’s”Ab ke saawan”, and all background noise goes silent. Indipop could have died as a class, however it should all the time survive as a sentiment.
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