this is for all of HR's fans and maybe even some of us who have looked upon him or his music with some disdain in the past. It is confession time. It is in support of him.
(Am really looking for a serious conversation on this front. Please feel free to criticize, but i would hope we do so from an analytical bent rather than with just raw expressions of disgust. p.s. i will be out traveling tomorrow, so will not be around to field any comments/ questions for a while...)
fwiw, some of us have detested HR. i think it's quite fashionable to do so and subtly put down his teen audience as misguided and musically-uncultured. but the same youth has been responsible for leading important valuable changes in society throughout history .
i'd give HR credit for bringing on the "Indian rock" era more explicitly than's been done before. at least, we are now talking about it. how well any of his audiences really understand "rock" is questionable, but he's given folks back home that terminology for starters. u know, when the Beatles first landed in America, from what i gather, they did introduce a new music. a lot of the older folks from that era hated the looks, the life-style and the music. however, over time, the Beatles went on to create history and shape the music landscape for all time. maybe rock had an earlier genesis in the U.S., but it was the Beatles who made rock really popular.
i would hate to be known as one of those "closed-minded" folks who slammed the Beatles. i would similarly hate to be known as one of the guys who impeded valuable transformations in Indian music, perhaps being initiated by HR today. in any case, the entire American transition process from a soft 50s sound to the 60s style was chaotic. and it was reflected in the confusion and the free-wheeling hippie life-style of that era. We have some of that free-wheeling rain-dance and techno-metal life-style in Indian metros today. today, western music is better off for all of that chaos.
who is to say that Indian music will not similarly benefit from the HRization that we have seen so far? i think it's always dangerous to dismiss new trends as fads. most are, but some go on to make long-lasting impacts.of course, with any progress, whether it's in the field of national economics or music, there are segments that are left behind and suffer. but in general, we end up with progress, more choices and general upliftment. perhaps some aspect of our traditional music will suffer in comparison (as happens in any field of progress), but i am an optimist when it comes to believing that on average we'll be better off. i dont think some of the olden goldies type of music we like will ever go away, just that the new music will perhaps capture the fast expanding part of the market.
when it's late nite and it's party-time, some of us do enjoy the songs with a beat, with the rock in it, the HR type of songs. There are times and there are moods. There is a time for Lata, Asha, Kishore, Rafi, Manna Dey or Hemant Kumar. But i think there is also a time to "Lest Rack". A world without choices and without variety would be a boring one.
for all who say that HR or someone is untrained in the classical style, who cares? what i want to find is appeal, not necessarily how someone got there. if someone can belt out a great song without training, more power to them. conversely, you cld have someone who is very well-trained but still flunk the grade.
on another level, i have always been very suspicious of folks who claim to be intellectuals, academics and "trained". they usually carry the most baggage around and ironically are the least open to change. a lot of the important developments on Wall Street and elsewhere have happened in the research and quant groups of corporations, not universities.
there is also a question of adoption. when i first saw the new Mercedes and BMW models, i hated the new look. i thought they had messed up. but over a period of time, i find more appeal with the new models, less with the old. Who is to say that we will not somehow undergo a similar mind-change when it comes to HR and his music?
who are we anyway to say what is good or what is not? what folks should listen to and what they should not? we have understood the importance of opening up our markets, of having more choices than just Ambassadors and Fiats. Should we not have more choices with music as well, the sort that is being brought about by HR? Isn't the entire process of evolution one of dialectic growth, two steps forward one step back?
who knows? for all we know, maybe HR is the guy who will be known in future for bringing on important changes in Indian music. God forbid?
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