I Hate You, New Songs !

1989...
I was watching Chitra Lahari on DD. Mom said "My God! What songs are these! Yuk. The music in my days... they were Golden Days!"

2013... 24 years later...
I am listening to the Telugu Top10 of the week on YouTube. I say to myself "My God! What songs are these! Yuk. The music in my days... they were Golde..."

And I suddenly stop myself from completing the sentence.

Was my mom right? Or am I?

Just because something becomes old, does it become Gold?
Does every generation think that their younger days had better songs than the present songs?
Will the same songs I call no-soul songs, be called golden songs by my children?

No. There is something basically wrong in our judgement of music!

No confusion. Just 3 points will make it clear! Read on...


1. Psychology says that mind simply blocks sad parts, difficult parts of memory from reaching consciousness. It only retains the pleasurable moments. We so associate the 'golden days' with the
songs we listened to at that time. "Tadaaan!" and songs of those days become precious.

2. Mind and it's power over us, slowly grow as we age. The lesser the age, the less influence of the mind and the happier we feel inside. Hence, a song can touch your deeper core at a younger age, more than at your older age. So, old songs feel better, and we cannot connect to the new songs because of heavier influence of mind.

3. This point is my favourite, being a music composer...

Music in earlier days was more "Live". So, more "Alive".
In earlier days, violinists, percussionists, keyboard and piano players and others sit Live at the
studio. Ab
out 10 to 130 people assembled with all their rapt attention.
They play the music when the music director waves his hand.
They are human beings. Artists. When they played, the Cosmic Intelligence flowed through them.
Their playing had the human touch, the human error, the human heart and feelings in it.
All their collective intense intentions of making a beautiful piece, joined them together as ONE ENERGY to produce the piece.
It was soul harmony manifesting itself into a song.
The singer used to sing the song along with the huge orchestra of performers. He/She is very much "present" there.
The song was "Alive".
It penetrates you. It harmonizes and vibrates with that essential inner core you have inside you.
So the olden songs are master pieces.

Music these days is a one man affair.
Basically, the composer composes the tune and the pieces on a sequencer on computer.
Just tracks upon tracks on a computer screen.
Sometimes, if required, some musician comes down and plays his piece on his, say, guitar and leaves. Then another day, a pianist is called to add his piece.
No one meets anyone. There is no transfer of the joy, music is essentially concerned with.
Most of the instruments are computer generated. A computer has no heart, does it?

The song is more of a machine's way of imitating a human art.

There is no human harmony, intensity or power of intention.
And when finally the whole thing is done, the singer arrives to render the song. He/She would sing the song to a dead, mechanical track... not to alive human beings with divine art playing their talent out to the singer's vocals.

Now tell me, how can we compare the earlier songs with today's numbers?

PS: I dream to make music with hundreds of people in a studio playing live...
I dream of making real voices with clarity to sing my tune...
(not singers who sound like patients of nervous disorder singing in their bathrooms...)
I dream of big studios and producers who understand "real" music.
I muse over those Golden Days!
When Lakshmikanth Pyerelal recorded 1-2-ka-4 and Cholike Peeche with heaviest drums, dholaks and tablas with scores of stringed insturments played... Even today, they give goose bumps!
When Ilayaraja had hoards of most talented musicians summoned to play for him in Chennai...
coming down all the way not only from Bombay but from abroad sometimes.

Hey, when did all this down-trend in India start actually? Wasn't it in about 1992 with Ro... ahem...