Anyone remember MTV in India in the early 90s? Back in the day when there was no local flavor to it (and it should
have stayed that way) and we got a healthy dose of Michael Jackson, GNR,
Aerosmith, Bon Jovi... and that other band called Metallica who ‘good boys and
girls do not listen to because heavy metal is music of the devil’.
It was an awesome feeling to finally put the face of Slash
to the guitar solo you heard being played off that tape that you picked up from
the local music store. Going forth, any time you heard the solo from November
Rain, you’d immediately have the scene of Slash walking out in front of a
church with his Gibson Les Paul and playing that solo, play in your head.
While all this seemed fine, unknowingly we were slowly being
subject to the likes of Apache Indian, No Doubt. As the decade drew to a close,
the Indian flavor had set in and the host of Indian VJ’s like Chinnapa, Cyrus, and
Maria had taken over our TV sets. Like the slow hit of a good joint, we were being
subject to boy bands such as Backstreet Boys, Boyzone, No Mercy (with their
famous ‘Where do you go’ and the hit
sequel ‘Please don’t go’….face palm) and MLTR.
That was the story of the average kid in the late 90s who
was dependent on MTV for their daily hit of western music because Bollywood was
just not cool any more. And in an era before YouTube (and the internet in
general), this was the only music we knew. And if anyone from that era tells
you that they never listened and sang along to ‘Backstreets back…alright’ is a
bare faced liar. Every metal head today and the so-called ‘I’m into the whole
underground music’ snob had at some point in time been into a boy band. Don’t
believe them if they say otherwise.
I’ll admit it. Despite all the so –called, grunge, blues and
metal that I worship vehemently now, I am guilty of owning more than a couple
of boy band tapes. I once even danced to a Will Smith song back in school. I
was also severely disappointed for not being part of the line-up that danced to
the ‘Backstreets Back’ song a few years earlier. In my very first band, I
played (and sang) ‘Words’ by Boyzone. (I know it’s actually a BeeGees classic,
but everyone knew it for the Boyzone version.) I wanted to learn Spanish
because I thought Ricky Martin was cool. I thought a white suit with a velvet
red shirt and that silly little hat was ‘a style’.
It’s easy (and convenient) for me to blame it all on puberty
and hormones back then. But that won’t change the fact that I’m guilty of
holding up the devils horns whenever somebody on TV requested for the Westlife
version of ‘Uptown Girl’. I’m also guilty of singing along to Backstreet Boys
‘Quit playing games with my heart’.
While I may have moved on to bigger and better genres of music, there is
always this strand of ‘boy band pop music’ in my DNA that will rear its ugly
head when I least expect it. Like the other time I carelessly started singing
along to Boyzone’s ‘No Matter What’ when I heard the ringtone set by someone in
the office floor. Your honour, I’m guilty of having worshipped boy bands. But I
plead insanity for I had not yet heard the cure of grunge and blues. The
defendant requests that a life time of ‘just-knowing’ what he did will be
punishment enough.
PS: Even then I hated N’Sync and don’t comprehend why
Timberlake is trying to become an actor
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