Of Musical Keyboards and New Beginnings

I recently sold my Yamaha PSR E453 (not shown here) and hope to get this Casio CT-S1 soon!

The first time I saw a musical keyboard was probably in 1990-91, when I’d just started going to college, in Lucknow. There was this one time when I’d gone to my friend Shobhit’s house and there, for the first time, saw a small, compact Casio keyboard and immediately liked it very much. With all its lights, buttons, switches and fancy sounds, the little Casio looked quite cool and I absolutely loved it right away. I think that keyboard belonged to one of Shobhit’s elder brothers and I assumed it might be fairly expensive. So, while I wished I could have one too, I didn’t really imagine I’d be getting one anytime soon.

However, I soon got lucky beyond my wildest dreams. A few days after seeing that Casio keyboard at Shobhit’s house, I mentioned the whole thing to one of my best friends, Manish, and told him about how fascinated I was with that Casio and how I wished I could have one, so I could learn to play. Immediately, he said he had one too – his father had got one for him from the US – and that since he wasn’t really very keen on playing music, I could have it for as long as I wanted! The next time Manish came to my place – I was living with my grandparents at that time, since my father had been transferred to Bareilly and my parents had moved there – he got his keyboard along with him and handed it to me. I have to admit, I was very, very happy! This was also a small, compact keyboard, white, and every bit as cool as the one I’d seen at Shobhit’s house. However, I don’t remember if it was a Casio or a Yamaha – this was 35 years ago after all – but I think it may have been a Yamaha keyboard. 

Kishore Kumar and the Incredible Power of AI

Legendary singer Kishore Kumar passed away in 1987. With the magic of AI, his voice has been brought back to life for this new song, which is from the movie Saiyaara

 

I know it's not him. It's not Kishore Kumar's voice. It can't be. The legend passed away in 1987, when he was just 58 years old. My childhood and teenage years were filled with his music - so many songs, so many memories of sitting by a record player and, later, a cassette player and listening to Kishore Kumar's songs. Such a powerful voice, such resonance. 

Today, when I heard this new AI-generated version of the movie Saiyaara's title song, which has been co-created by musicians Kisna and Anshuman Sharma, it first came as an incredible shock. How can it be?! It's THAT voice, the one I knew and loved so well. The singer whose songs I still listen to all the time even today, almost 40 years after he passed away. And yet, here he is, again. Singing, like he used to. It's the 1980s all over again. I know, of course, that it isn't Kishore Kumar who's singing that song. It's just an AI-generated representation of what he might have sounded like, had he sung this song. But it still brought tears to my eyes. Tears of happiness. I couldn't stop crying. Tears flow, every time I listen to this song. I try to sing along and I can't, my voice gets choked with emotion.  

There will never, ever, be another Kishore Kumar. He'll remain unmatched. But I'm grateful that AI tech was able to bring him back, even if only for four minutes, for just one song, just this once. 

Lady Gaga - Vanish Into You

Vanish Into You, by Lady Gaga, is rocking!

Lady Gaga is rocking with some of her recent releases and of those, my number 1 favourite is this song, Vanish Into You. The other is Abracadabra, reimagined in 1980s style. See below. I think it's better than the original. Both songs remind of the music I used to listen to, back in the 1980s. You go, Gaga!

Pet Shop Boys: Still Rocking after 40 Years

Everybody will Dance was released in August this year. It's the 1980s all over again

I first listened to the Pet Shop Boys sometime in the late-1980s when their second album, Actually, was released. The album cover – whimsy and eccentric – was what attracted me in first place and I guess I must have paid something like Rs 35-40 for the cassette, which I must have then played on repeat dozens of times over the next few months. I especially loved the songs It's a Sin, What Have I Done to Deserve This? and Rent – all of which I still listen to, to this day, 35 years after I first heard them. The Pet Shop Boys, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe, sure did have one hell of a talent for creating electronica-disco. And the best part is, the duo are still at it, still rocking, still creating music that has the power to move fans of 1980s-style disco. Just listen to Everybody will Dance, which was released in August this year as part of a five-track digital bundle.

Everything about music itself and the ways in which people buy (or not) and listen to music has changed in the last 3-4 decades and the 1980s seems like a faraway place in a distant time, on a distant planet, at least in the context of music. And yet there’s Pet Shop Boys, still making music their way, still weaving their old magic, still making people dance. Making everybodydance. More power to them – may their music never stop.

My Current Favourite EDM: Madis - Cracow Sunset

Listen to this on a good pair of speakers or headphones. On my Edifier R1700BT, this sounds crazy!

 

Born in Krakow, Polish composer and electronic music producer Amadeusz Małkowski – or Madis as he’s popularly known – makes some terrific music. He says his music is characterised by ‘modern sounds combined with the sounds of old-school electronica.’ Madis is well-known for his remix of the movie Interstellar’s theme music, and his single Desert of Lost Souls, which is inspired by Jean-Michel Jarre’s music. His debut album, Sea of Tranquility, was a big hit with his fans and one track from the album – Carrying the Fire, has amassed more than nine million views on YouTube.

A Song I Can't Stop Listening To: I Wanna Know, Cliff Wedge Remix

I Wanna Know, Cliff Wedge remix

 

Everyone once in a while I come across a song on YouTube, which I simply can't stop listening. Well, the obsession usually lasts for a few weeks before fading somewhat, with a new song then taking its place. Currently, it's this one - I wanna Know, Cliff Wedge remix. It's from Stockholm Nightlife, an international electro-pop project based in Sweden. This song has been written by M. Paulsson and F. Wahlin, and the vocals are by Erika Selin.

Do yourself a favour: If possible, don't listen to this on your phone or on your PC's or laptop's built-in speakers, which often sound cheap and tinny. Listen to this on a good, powerful pair of speakers and it'll be magic!

Times Keep Changing but the Music Must Never Stop

 

From the beginning of time – well, at least the beginning of my time on this planet – music has been one of my most favourite things. Everything, from Hindi film music to ghazals to English Pop, Rock, Disco, Techno, EDM, House, Latin, Reggae, Rumba, Flamenco, Salsa… and probably more. I started off with listening to the radio and have since then worked my way through LPs, cassettes, CDs, MP3s and FLACs. In fact, I’ve never taken to streaming music platforms like Spotify etc., and still listen to MP3s and FLACs using Winamp. Otherwise, it’s YouTube. But I guess that’s how it is for each generation of listeners – we’ve all had our own different ways of discovering new music, buying it (or acquiring it otherwise, via means that may or may not be entirely legal) and playing it on different devices.   

For my 16-year-old son, ‘music’ is all about streaming his favourite tracks on Spotify. He discovers and plays all his favourite music on Spotify – that app being the centre of his musical universe. Other elements in that universe include his Android smartphone, a pair of Bluetooth headphones, an Amazon Echo smart speaker. As far as I can remember, he’s never heard music played on a CD player. In fact, he may not even have seen a standalone CD player and might never have seen an actual music CD. Music cassettes had more or less disappeared from mainstream use a decade or more before the time he was born. And as for LPs – vinyl records – I suppose most kids of his age won’t even recognize those, and most would’ve never seen a turntable in their lives. Theirs is a generation accustomed to choosing and immediately playing any track, from any artist in the world, immediately, at the mere touch of some kind of a screen on some digital device or the other. For them, to have to muck around with actual physical media – flipping through stacks of CDs, cassettes or records, finding what they want to play, putting it on the player, and then going to the trouble of fast-forwarding or reversing through the tracks – may well be quite unimaginable. And maybe that’s a good thing. This generation will not need to know the heartache caused by spools of tangled magnetic tape and scratched CDs or LPs.