The social complexities of Music in the '70s and '80s.

When I was around 16 or so,  our family bought a stereo system...a cassette player with 2 speakers.  We also had a vinyl record player that could be hooked to the speakers.  We had arrived!!  And more....the deck could hold two cassettes so we could record ..from one to the other. 

I listened to Abba, Boney M, Tina Charles, The Carpenters, Beatles - pop music.....that's the way aha aha...I like it....aha aha.... and ofcourse Micheal Jackson.  Our cousin Hiro who used to live in Lagos introduced me to Harry Belafonte....and my brother Mahesh, who by then went to work, first in Dusseldorf and then in London, introduced me to Anne Murray.  With the VCR and Top of the Pops video cassettes....yesss I was "the music connoisseur" or so I thought. 

One day my sister Mala hands me a cassette asking me to play it - Jagjit Singh!!! who is this person I exclaimed!!??  And the song...woh kagaz ki khasti, woh baarish ka pani.  And other soul-some songs. But she was in love, so I added Jagjit Singh songs to my "collection". 

When Mala & Rajesh (the love of her life that brought Jagjit to our home) got married,  Mummy entertained quite often..lots of good food and music; hey....that's my forte ...I made playlists (at that time it meant recording cassettes) for these parties with Dancing Queen and Rasputin, feeling excited and DJ-ish, wanting to impress my new Jiyaji and his friends. 

Alas!! 😞  Rajesh and his friends brought their own music!  Doors, Pink Floyd, Eagles, Eric Clapton, pray God! who were these creatures who made this noise and sang lyrics that were so radical (yes and Super tramps too!).  I felt shadowed, lost  - inadequate.  Not one to give up on music,  I created new playlists (🙄 - yes I mean recorded new cassettes) of this new odd music and listened to them everyday.  Soon the words made sense and the noisy music had me spellbound.   It was Brick in the Wall, Cocaine, Riders on the Storm...(i always held on to the Beatles) that were always on my playlist.

Hindi film music, rap, electronic - as I grew older and wiser, I loved all sorts of music....not concerned with genre, only with the rhythm, but Abba, and Boney M were cobwebbed, forgotten perhaps consciously. 

2008...Mama Mia !!! Merly Streep and Pierce Brosnan brought back Abba to my life along with it all the oldies that I had tucked away.  Now Pop, Rock, Jazz, Sufi, Bollywood... Arijit, Sonu, Rehman, Beyonce, Jim Morrison, not to forget, Honey Singh and Badshah all live together, without conflict,  in my playlists. 𝅘𝅥𝅮🎝🎝𝆔𝆔  I love happy beginnings, don't you??