#10. Tandav : Agni


Tandav. An neo-aryan rock fantasy from a 25 year old band, that refuses to give up. Known for hoodwinking heavy metal in the late 90s and then transgressing to exploit 'sanskritized raga-rock', this time, Agni has clearly taken up the role as lord Shiva's harbinger. Righteous and Hindu to the core. Amid the backdrop of wailing conch shell and clashing cymbals, painted faces and macabre body movements try hard to deflect the lack of substance or content. The effect of Agni is slapstick and based on shock. Hard entrenched in the ancient cob-web of class and creed, this band is trying very hard to re-define themselves, and that too for a long time. Rocking on mythology with generic riffs and macabre dance, this choreographic display of "hindu-rock" is limpid and  abject. 


#09. Mysore Se Aayi : Raghu Dixit and Company.


Known for his boisterous stage presence and mighty voice, studded with ignoble patriarchal jokes, Raghu Dixit is a super-hero on his own accord. India's loudest if not biggest singer. This performance is set inside a grandiose post-colonial ceremony. The Queen of England is celebrating her annual Jubilee. The studio is packed with her subjects and the special guest : Mister Raghu Dixit au compare !  Bring on the horses, the Pakistani cavalry, a Rajasthani folk troupe jostling along side random women holding peacock feathers. Lights, camera and dance ! All trying to groove and trot along to a song about a girl from Mysore, who ran away after stealing the singers heart (and mind). Bet the Queen did not get a word about the hometown girl and watched in geriatric awe this cacophonic gaiety. The trademark presence and performance of the macho-chantuer from Mysore is 200%. This is the highest (and loudest) career moment perhaps ? Shoddy presentation, over-killed exotica and plagiarism of folk traditions aside, a performance as this one bares open  the extolled bullshit of  Orientalism. The penny-worth circus of Indian Exotica. Mocking is thy business ... and business is good.


#08. Rojoni : Amlan Chakraborty


Consumerism and 'looking good' has finally arrived in Bengal. Dada, lets go hi-rez? The state of Bengali ballads takes a new dip, freshly spiked with coquettish eyes, dangling flowers and english fonts subbing bengali lyrics. The plot spins on the same, ageless, dense matter : the pivotal game of unrequited love versus feminine vanity. Waxed in innocence and naivety, the singer has got all his banal rhymes pat down. Befuddling is the case of a man falling in love and finding inspiration at the tacky charms of an over-coquettish woman. Even the Bengali have Puppy Love ! Joy Bangla Joy ? This sickly sweet and titillating ride will raise your cholesterol fast. Anglicized and circumcised in language, this kind of music is a reflection of the deprived fantasies of the bourgeois bengali brethren. Out of fashion and out-of-focus, this video is a candy coated clog-fest !
#07. Untitled : Blakc


Call it 'Really Obtuse' or 'Wannabe' or just plain 'Lost' ...What happens when urban boys try to project distress, masquerading in goth make-up swaying next to discarded mannequins inside a ramshackle building. Post the reversed guitar plucks and out of focus shots of abandon, the chorus blasts open with the words "should have never let you go".  The singer's voice is actually great, taking the listener to imagine a band from Texas or Wyoming or maybe Seattle : yet this wayward wailer (who is actually from Mumbai) is totally pat-down 'yankee' in accent, subject and melody. It's amazing how the sound of American rock has influenced thousands self styled Indian rockers, for nearly three decades now. Whiney guitar solos and precision drum-rolls later, the song sounds like another industrial ballad, railing for attention, inside the loudest city of India. The liner notes beam out saying "The album was mastered at Sterling Studios, New York by the same engineer who has mastered Coldplay and AC/DC albums". Fact is, Sterling Studios rolls out more than one thousand mastered albums a year. Be it Nickelback or Shakira or Ricky Martin or Bollywood Hits or The Kinkyboots. One industry sound to rule em' all ... and to Consume em' all. 


#06. : Lumina : Dualist Inquiry


The first thirty seconds into the video, just when it seems like a parody or one of those youtube video-pranks, we are surprised ! As soon as the blonde girl starts running and the beat kicks in,  a candy-glitch melody gives way to Puppy-Love. Enter the Girl-Boy-Check-Out-Scene. Sweet synthesizers expose hidden desires. The plot gets murkier as the boy is hit by a car, cutting the chase in between. Bang, crash, sirens and medics ! As the singers husky voice breaths hope into the consumerism of broken hearts, the plot thickens further with the boy (visibly angry and confused) and the belle (feeling blonde) going separate ways. Perhaps our protagonist is a ghost ? The producer and composer of the song appears sitting on the hood of a car, looking dapper, for a moment as the song fades out. The quality of pop music made with electronic instruments is top-notch as is the outlandishly alien story made with elementary school ideas. Aspiring to an episode out of Teen Wolf or Pretty Little Lairs, Lumina leaves the viewer feeling totally dingbat ...


#05. We've Arrived! : Pepsi MTV Indies


The Media Machine of Mumbai (MMM) has an amazing capacity to make everything look and sound like an ad-film. Everything and everyone must confirm. A robotized mindset that will mix and cut images, montages, action and postures to spectacular precision, all digitally juiced up and pumped out to arrive at a complete incoherent outcome : No content. No meat. No brain. Good looking Rockers, Mac-books and electronic instruments, shiny guitars, twirling drumsticks, all ready to bedazzle the hired audience into a perfect sync-sound fantasy : In unison raving "We Have Arrived". Launched recently with much hype and gaiety, MTV Pepsi Indies is currently afloat on a dire rut of repeating videos. Being hailed as India's premier indie music channel which otherwise seems clearly deprived of content and vision-less  branding. Where from have these messiahs of youth culture arrived ? Never-mind the industry nepotism and ad-film ethics, there is nothing Indie about this video or the venture within. DSLR resolution, digital gloss and pro-cuts souped up with audio and efx barely manage to hide a pointless and breathless run to start the song. Surely they have arrived, into the same rut and stage, yet again. The grand sum of this gala show-stopping premier is eventually decrepit, narcissistic  and riding on a doltish pop sound.  Hired or fired, these entrepreneurs are definitely not 'indie'. This is the fat crusty urban grease of 'Made-in-Mumbai-Mud'. Mmm, this is shit. No hit.

#04. 'Hummer GADDI Da' (Official Video) : HONEY SINGH

As legit and pompous Punjabi Rap and Hiphop is, as dumb and idiotic is the visual representation of this simian dance of opulence and machoism. Punjabi rappers who sing out in the shriekiest pitch with a penchant nasal voice, do love to flaunt themselves in big cars, next to foreign models, with cash, inside posh hotels, wearing gold chains, under big lights, next to expensive things. We love to Bling Like Da Amrika. Almost identical to their black role-models across the world in the U.S, Punjabi Rap is masochistic and chest thumping in nature. Hummer Gaddi Da is tale of being legit and feeling powerful. The lyrics extol the power of the Hummer (General Motors last standing Monolith). Shrieky voices announce the legitimacy of the clan in question. Hired for the day by none other than the almighty-guru of Punjabi Rap, Honey Singh. "The village is gonna shake as I go past in my Hummer". Deprived is the scene, and the depiction of power, strutting around in a borrowed vehicle. The posse is 100% male, no dicing around and no booty calls to make. The hilarious aspirations in the video are clear, as is the total you-tube success of the tune. Hit or Shit, Punjabi Rap has a fat fan-base, from truckers to teddy boys to tantalizing aunties. From the dhaba to the disco, the message is loud and clear. Punjabi (c)Rap is in. "This how we do it .. This, is how we do it ? "  


#03. Bomb : Brahma 


The Bomb by Brahma is a time machine of sorts, throwing us right back to 1996. Around the time when indian rock & roll was a kindled notion, as baseless as any counter-culture could be and as copy-cat to resemble the western patriarchs of heavy metal music. Back then, the junta in the making would singularly wear black, claim to worship satan and try to look as angry. Huge drum-kits and guitars shaped like medieval weapons pounding and shredding neo-classical rudiments would rule the stage across India, from Bombay to Guwahati to Kerala. Hundreds of 'head-bangers' would take the front rows and their stupefied emotions displayed upon flaying heads. The heights of heavy metal hedonism would be marked as a neolithic milestone in the Indian music lava. The dark ages would eventually crumble into the sidelines, as grunge, indie, post-rock, shoe-gazer, goth and other musically sane forms of rock would percolate into Indian ears and mindset.  Yet Brahma did not give up. Not for an hour ... Not for a double bass paradiddle ! This is the story of the tenacious burden of metal. Like all die-hard metal-heads and their demi-gods, the tryst with black fabric, pointy black guitars, black spandex lycra pants, black hammer bass guitars and humongous drum-kits is still at it. Drilling away at the most idiosyncratic riffs to express angst, frustration and the eventual doom. The 'diarrhea of death' did not fade. This is not bogus? This is Jurassic! The fist remains tight even as the aging metal-heads regress, as does their music and sound. Stupid yet amazing!


#02. Jihad : Motherjane 


"I believe in Jihad ... I die to him return". Rather, I die for him to return ? Pardon the grammar, the half painted faces and the sudden eruption of pseudo rebellion, this video by Motherjane is a case of aspirations gone absurd. The melody and the mood is side-splitting even when the subject and story is dead serious. A loud and lame sermon. Rusty riffs and jagged beats set against decrepit factories and dockyards is a favorite cliche for most hard-rocking guys. (make them look way bigger than they are) : Garnished with random shots from a movie called Anwar, the battle lines are drawn as Motherjane calls for holy war. They want Jihad, if love be thy weapon. This is near priceless, kooky and hilarious. Rowdy looking muslim gangsters await the lone ranger saviour rousing the busy streets of Mumbai. Oh wait! there is a solo shot of a and only female, a lady wearing a Hijab. Just like many Bollywood movies, the plot is dicey and the music is dupe. Motherjane is harking the day of reckoning in the name of the innocent and the slain. Hailed currently as progressive rockers, this video is a case of middle-age minstrels masquerading as poets of doom. Preposterous infidels !?  This is the most batty idea to symbolize a watered down middle class sentiment, the frustration of conflict. Strange words and even stranger ideas of salvation. 


#01. Kuch Bhi Karlo : Swastik


The chaste combination of digital piano and strings is as pointless as panoramic locations forced to coexist with feelings of loss and desolation. Swastik and their latest video will squeeze the last drops of lilting sadness and gloom, for your viewing pleasure. Lame is the name of thy game. Imagine a watered down Vangelis theme conducted by 'Karan Johar's pantywaist orchestra'  riding along a 'bleeding-heart' singer, stylized atop a mountain, decorated with crusty innuendos. Let the lovers dress in newspapers and wear masks.  Besotted ideas of love and denial always find the worst balladeers of pain. Do not ignore the needless yet beautiful shots of lofty mountain locations fading in and out against the separating lovers. A dated notion that many young men and women in India happen to fall in (and out) of love, specifically at hill-stations. Titled 'Kuch Bhi Kar Kalo' (Do what you want), the video is an expensive trek into the dire dregs of a life unfulfilled and the burden of being left behind. Next stop Tear-Jerky Bollywood ? A limpid fantasy, captured and killed by an ignoble ad-film sensibility, botched with barbed wires, flora, fauna and masks, add a sullen looking girl and a man (perishing) wrapped in newspaper. What the f**k is going on ? The depths of sordid lament, broken promises and desolation are fathomless ...