Chudiyaan

Every once in a while comes a crooner, one who sings lilting melodies with flat notes that tug your heart string. With powerful timber to the voice and a great combination of keyboard, guitar and drums. Then this band finds the right story, one that lends itself to such emotional voice, and then finds lyrics that fit the theme spot on. Then they find a theme, an object, one that may otherwise be just something random, but they make it symbolize the entire story.

Before I talk about the let me introduce, Kaash. A Delhi based band, Viren and Shivam are credited with lyrics and also produced the music videos. That voice is Viren's, who caresses the microphone that reminds me of Axel Rose. Shivam at keyboards, Nishant Parashar and Sonic Shori on the lead and bass with Nirvan Parvera on the drums. The comparison with Axel goes on, the music video has a 'theme' interspersed with shots of the band in a desert. The song itself  is a romantic ballad, pictured on a young couple in love, their moments of tenderness and silliness, and a breakup. If your mind flashes back to 'Estranged', I am not sure that connection to Guns n Roses is just coincidental.

Main Laut Aaugna starts with a girl stuffing clothes in a suitcase to leave. As she slams the door, a picture of the two of them together falls and cracks. The song then turns to glimpses of a happy relationship, silliness of a newly married couple, with an emphasis on bangles, the pride and love with which the guy puts them on a girl's wrist. The relationship turns  sour when the guy makes a drunk pass at someone and when his (wife?) tries to hold him back, he breaks the glass bangles, and so does the relationship. As he sings 'mein laut aaunga', he goes back to get her, he takes a box of bangles to win her back. Symbolizing the chudiyaan for their love, the video makes it a theme, a center piece to the story of this young love. The attractiveness of glass bangles contrasts with their fragility, in a way that suggests that love, attractive as it may be as it adorns a young couple, can be equally fragile and delicate, and when it breaks, it hurts.

The music video has a few interesting easter eggs, at 0:28 the phone shows 'Shivam Khare' as one of the contacts, not sure if that's a hint at  credits. Another interesting shot at 1:30 into the song is when Nirvan has something in his hand that he tosses aside just in time as if someone cued him it was time to start playing the drums and he had been distracted elsewhere.

Kaash defines Hindi Rock by distilling the purest emotions an Indian soul showcasing it with luminous production quality and stunning songs.

Watch the video or listen and check them on social media

Hindi rap

The year was '92, and a funny looking Jat wearing a Michael Jackson hat and earrings with a flashy red jacket and a red tie looked every bit as clichéd as you think. What he also brought was a booming voice, one that had a good range especially a good  solid baritone. A good timber for a singing voice, Baba Sehgal however rushed in the era of rap into Hindi music.

Albeit low-budget and limited-success with earlier albums, the year '92 favored Baba. His funny parody Thanda Thanda Pani, originally Vanilla Ice's Ice Ice Baby became  a hit. The biggest hit however, is undoubtedly, Dil Dhadke.

Starting out like a cheesy 80s music video, the single features the ravishing Pooja Bedi as a 'dream girl'. A bare-chested Baba standing in front of a bright red table fan is a cool throw-back to that era of music videos. Incidentally, the random girls, Baba and Pooja Bedi are never in the same frame together, which makes me wonder if they never even met, each of scenes were shot separately and then put together: not unusual, just sounds like a struggling artiste who gets his first break and has the ability to put together a music video. The overall video,  and the song itself, became a hit!

The lyrics and the meter became his signature, 'mein to jaoonga, pakdunga, chedunga, gaoonga, bolegi woh na-na-na-na-na hey na-na-na-na-na' .. using the natural rhyme of the words in the language but at times, surprisingly difficult to roll off our tongues. Baba also portrays himself as a innocent and aspirational, dependent on someone else to protect him and make him successful  'mujhe god hi bachhae, ache ache logon se hi mera parichay karay'.

The timing was a part of this success. MTV had only just launched in India, in collaboration with the state-run Doordarshan. This music video became the first Indian music video to be aired on MTV India. It received a lot of screen-time, especially as requests poured in as MTV made inroads to masses that typically weren't too keen on English music.

Watch Baba Sehgal in Dil Dhadke

An aramaic hymn

Four artistes heard an ancient hymn while visiting a priest. A Syrian orthodox priest in Kerala singing a song in Aramaic, a language that had has disappeared for generations, with some hymns remaining in parts of the world far from their origin in Syria.

The work rendered became a mesmerizing short song with beautiful melody, with classical guitar riffs that became a signature of the band. The first big break for this band produced at a world class studio with a 'profession...al' producer, the song defined the band, and became one of the top Indian rock songs ever.

It begins with Rahul's vocals, a couplet, quickly followed by Sushmit's melodies. Asheem provided the vocals but he, along with Amit on drums mostly stayed away from taking the spotlight away from the guitar which provides the rhythm too, not just the melody.

Introducing Indian Ocean with their first major hit, Kandisa
https://soundcloud.com/indian-ocean-music/kandisa

No real video was ever made for this song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPzTsQI8SZA