It is virtually impossible for any normal person to talk music with a desi immigrant. Well, for any normal person born after Watergate, that is. If you are currently availing of Medicare benefits, swear by the AARP, and are worried about your prostate or your hip bone, the desi immigrant is an ideal music aficionado for you.
Because the desi tastes in non-Indian music are frozen in the stone ages. Poll desis about their favorite non-Indian names and the same names turn up. Pink Floyd - it always starts with Pink Floyd! Nice band, but really, there is something bizarre about a person in his 20s knowing each and every word and note in Comfortably Numb, Dark Side of the Moon and all those damns bricks in the wall. The Pink Floyd craze jars when you take their age into consideration. But no person of any age, who is not certified to be mentally challenged, has any business singing along to Bryan Adams' Summer of 69 or If You've Really Loved a Woman. In fact, even the mentally challenged will be offended by my speculation that they might know the songs. Between Pink Floyd at one end and Bryan Adams at the other, the desi taste in music is woefully limited, often lame, and always, oh always, hopelessly dated.
It makes me wonder if the desis ever look around them when they are attending the latest Rolling Stones wail-fest or the raspy Bob Dylan whine-alongs. Don't they realize that except for fellow-desis in tshirts tucked into jeans with a thick belt holding them up, everyone else has white hair? That there is extra handicapped parking at these "concerts"? That the only radio stations they have preset in their cars are "Oldies" stations? (And of course, NPR as a previous post noted!)
Yes, Smoke on the Water is an amazing tune, Jim Morrison and Paul Simon opened new doors of the mind, and everyone has gone through phases of being obsessed with Nirvana's "burn out than fade away" songs. But really, did the Indian government impose some kind of ban on music that is less than 15 years old that we are unaware of? Don't they air the Grammys in India?
Seriously, desis, get with the program! Stop listening to old fogey music and expand your horizons. As it is, desis have too many traits in common with many old white people (rabid homophobia being one of them, but that's another rant). You could do without this one.
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As one of such offending US-desis, I hang my head in shame :P
ReplyDelete(is it okay to still like REM ?)
Btw, you forgot a subgroup: the gawdawful headbangers that swear by Metallica, GnR etc.
Haha! A quick look at the last.fm charts will show exactly why Pink Floyd and The Beatles are so highly regarded and not just by Desis. Music is not quite judged by it's age but by it's relevance and the chords it touches within us. People still listen to Beethoven and Mozart and their music is century and a half years old. And I suspect the same will be true of The Beatles, perhaps even Pink Floyd.
ReplyDeleteTell me you like U2 and/or Coldplay or god forbid any of the obscure Indie rock bands or hip-hop, I'll amuse you with a rant of my own. C'mon I dare you. :P
palscape, oh yes, the annoying IIT-bred metalheads are the worst. That's how you tell someone is from an IIT in India. They follow "I am a metal fan" with the bizarre line "GnR is one of my favorites".
ReplyDeleteRiding, Hahahaha.... I should have mentioned U2, Coldplay, Green Day and BEP as bands desis also mention for the heck of it.
I like GnR and am prepared to admit it with the utmost lack of shame. The narrower category of people one does need to make fun of, however, are those who like GnR AND have "November Rain" as their favorite song. Because that's probably the only song that they are aware of.
ReplyDeletegawker, nothing wrong with liking GnR. I just said it is stupid to name GnR as THE metal band.
ReplyDeleteAs a poor humble desi, I can only feel surprise at your picks on "non Indian music". I thought you'd talk Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Locatelli, Tchaikovsky, Handel, Vivaldi, etc etc. 80s, 90s or otherwise, I would suggest you listen to some decent music before you criticize the tastes of others. And no, good music doesn't change every other decade.
ReplyDelete