The Monkey and the Music Evolution
What was the first song that you completely fell in love with? If your answer is your mom’s lullaby, then pat yourself on the back and stop being momma’s kid. Well, the first song that I fell in love was “Chaiyya Chaiyya” from the movie Dil Se. What makes me proud is that I purchased an original cassette of the movie’s audio. Ha! Eat that illegal song recorders of the 90’s or today’s vicious downloaders. I remember happily singing the song over and over again. It stopped when the tape inside the cassette got weak and tore or was it the doing of the star kid of the family(?). But when the cassette stopped playing, there were two consequences, the song would be stuck in my playlist forever and the second one? Peace was finally restored and the folks at home stopped using cotton ear plugs.
As time went by, you start ageing and in this dynamic world of appeasing the cool kids, you’d have to be prepared. The hours of your formal knowledge about the next big billboard’s hottest single should be your major. Forget history, science and maths (Ugh, maths!), pop is your new bible. Backstreet Boys, Britney, Justin Timberlake are the ones you keep your eyes peeled out for. Next, you wait for your turn. Wait for one of the cool kids to sing the song, you know deep within you that that kid is going to mess up and when there’s that huge mess up, you turn into a Hermoine Granger and put the whole “It’s not leviOsa, it’s leviosA” stint. Congratulations for the one minute fame. The cool kid din’t bother acknowledging you because, there are hundreds of Hermoines waiting in line to save the cool kid and one turned out to be much faster than you. You’ll just have to wait my turn. TL;DF- The turn never came. I was practically invisible throughout school.
College would seem like a breeze. You enter college and the next thing you know, it’s over, you know nothing that and you’re ready to face the big world with no industrial awareness. Nothing much to talk about there but the list of the songs you listen to kept expanding like your tummy. And you’ve probably added all of them to your playlist. Every time you think of deleting a song off your list, it’s like throwing away your kid from a moving bullet train. You turn wise and let it stay for some more time that’s probably forever. It’s much better when the kid is ignored and stays in the corner of a room than going under a train.
So, by now you’re proud of your insane playlist on your phone. You sit by the window and dreamily look outside with all your favourite song taking over as the background music. That’s when your insanely smart friend from work comes and sits next to you. This friend then would take you phone to see what you really listen to every single day. That’s when your notice sweat perspiring from the sides of your forehead. The AC in the bus doesn’t help there at all. Your head screams “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO” and plots out a scheme to retrieve that ancient piece of phone you call a smartphone. But the damage is done. The friend after a laughing fit gives you a verdict “Backstreet boys? Really? What? Taylor Swift? Ewwww? Yuck? Ha ha? This is what you listen too? I thought you’d have a great choice. No Beetles? No Eddie Vedder? No Kurt Cobain? No Frank Sinatra?” With that, the work you put to project yourself as a cool person is annihilated. Well done SJ!
Sure, you’re never going to be on top of the music sense list. The Grammys would never even consider you if they’re planning to bring in a section to honour people with a great taste in music, but guess what? I will always remember what a good friend told me. “Justin Bieber started out cute, got annoying and n0w has some really addictive music that’s got so viral.” I’d like to extend a moment to apologize for being the one who mercilessly laughed and trolled him when a Justin Bieber song was loud when he opened up his Mac after a break.
So, if you’ve managed to survive up to this part in one piece, this is my observation. Our minds swing like monkeys. We’re unsure of things. Sometimes a song really moves us based on what we feel at that time or how the background of an intense scene really blows our friggin minds away. If you have a playlist and if people tend to judge you for that, own what you listen to because those little 4-minute wonders are shells of memories that you own and they are only yours. There’s always two ends of a spectrum and if you go on living in comparison, there’s always someone ahead of you who will put you in a tight spot or there’s that loafer who would make you seem like you’re better off right now. I say, ditch the spectrum and live for yourself. It’s about time that you did. Somewhere between NSYNC’s Bye Bye Bye and Postmodern Jukebox’s Bye Bye Bye, all of us grew up.
