Revolution 909.... for the uninformed, its a Daft Punk song (the one with the video showing you how a tomato picked at a farm ends up as a ketchup stain on some cop's shirt). Which has nothing to do with this page. Or, on a plane totally different from this one (the OhmPlane?), maybe it does. Eh heh heh heh... you will never know!

Anyway, this is definitely a timepass page, but this one is a more serious page.

I'm going to talk about the Indi Pop Revolution that happened during the early '90s. What really happened? Before we discuss that, I guess we should mention in short what the situation was a little bit before whatever happened happened. What was the Indian Pop (or, to make it a little broader, the Indian non-filmi) music scene like?

The way I see it, being a pop star wasn't such a great idea if you wanted to make money and/or be someone famous. Few people had ever achieved success, and exactly because of this reason, I think they should get a little bit of respect, each and every one of them. Names, names, names. Remo Fernandes. Sharon Prabhakar. That other girl with the half Hindu, half Muslim name, I can see her face but her name is stuck to the tip of my tongue, curly haired chick... - can you help? Mail me (never mind, Subroto did, at lightning speed, it was Parvati Khan).
There was a disco revolution in the early 80s, that unearthed such talent as Runa Laila and Nazia (and brother Zoheb) Hasan (anyone born in the late 70s or early 80s will remember Disco Deewane... I owned the whole album at one point of time, along with some Osi Bisa and Boney M). And of course, another way of becoming a non-filmi singer was to first appear as a background singer in the movies (I'm talking about Usha Uthup and Ramba Ho!, etc, those songs that Bhappida ripped off from Duran Duran tunes and so on)...
As I said, names, names, names. There were a few other people around, too. But whenever I think of the early 80s pop scene, I can only picture dimly lit rich South Bombay skyscraper apartments... why? I don't know.
One name that Remains In Light even after so much has changed, at least remains in light in my mind (well, to be frank a couple of those songs just came looking for me this summer for reasons that are not anything to do with timepass), and that name is Hassan Jahangir. But we will discuss that ``Disco Sensation from Pakistan'' some other time... On this page.

What about the rock scene? Most Indian bands were (and, sadly, still are) metal and hair bands, some even going to the extent of wearing leather clothing. There were a couple of good bands even then, and there of course are a lot more now, thanks to the whole Revolution 909 thing. But I'm talking about Indus Creed - only, they were called Rock Machine then (the name change is very very clear in my mind - it was just in 1993, the Golden Year, when their video Pretty Child off the album Second Coming was released on MTV, and they were credited as Indus Creed (formerly Rock Machine))... anyway, so rock did have a not-so-great beginning, but a beginning, nonetheless, and of course they had the Independence Rock Festivals and all that. Of course, rock in India was predominantly (and, for most bands, still is) a live thing. Unlike pop. Which is why, pop was sitting around waiting for Revolution 909.

Well, now that I have said all that shit, we can finally address the question: What happened?
 In 1990, war was beginning. What happen? Someone set us up the bomb. We get signal. What!
Liberalization happened. Our friend Manmohan Singh happened to India. The economy was liberalized, and although I don't know very much about politics/economics (one of the reasons why there are no political or social or economic timepass pages here, another reason being they in general suck a$$ anyway), somehow this resulted in foreign companies investing more and more money in India. And suddenly, there was Lehar Pepsi. Yes, before Pepsi was Pepsi, it was Lehar Pepsi. It took Coke a while to get to India, I remember (1994 - an ad in a Delhi newspaper says: Thumbs Up welcomes Coke to Delhi - Its lonely at the top. Within five months, Coke owns Thumbs Up, or something like that). Anyone who remembers that Pepsi was once called Lehar Pepsi will also remember the classic (if you can call it that) ad which was a teaser.... Remo and some little girl (I know I'm supposed to know she was someone famous, maybe his daughter or something, but I don't remember) singing, Are You Ready For The Magic? Of course, then, we had the introductory ad which featured Remo going, Open up! Open up! Open up!.... hahahahahaha. Eventually, we had an ad featuring Aamir Khan and (was it?) Lisa Ray and Aishwarya Rai - Hi I'm Sanjana. Got another Lehar Pepsi? And AamirKhan saying waitaminit while in the background, the ending to the Remo song from the teaser, Yehi Hai Right Choice Baby: ``Aa-hah!''

What came first, the music, or the misery?

Anyway, Liberalization happened, Pepsi happened, and Rupert Murdoch happened, though not necessarily in that order. NewOrder.
Rupert Murdoch. If you read the newspapers, you probably know more about him than I do. The only thing I might know is that Kevin Kline's role as an Australian media tycoon in Fierce Creatures was probably based on this guy. So he comes up with this idea of selling satellite television to the whole of Asia, with headquarters in Hong Kong. Hong Kong. I can still remember Nonie saying, ``Eight five two one seventy-two seventy-eight eight hundreeeed, and our Mandarin hotline number...'' when she hosted Dial MTV and/or MTV Most Wanted. Nonie!!! Where *IS* she nowadays? The last time I saw her was maybe 1996, when she made one of those (by then) rare appearances on what had (by then) become Channel [V]. But as usual, I'm getting ahead of myself.
Anyway, Rupert Murdoch came up with Satellite Television Asia Region (maybe I got the grammar in the acronym wrong, I remember only that it was a question on quite a few quiz contests when I was in school, and people always managed to get it wrong - actually it was more like the perfectionist a-hole quizmasters didn't accept their answers, I guess. Alright! Call me bitter. Bittersweet me), and called it STAR TV.
STAR TV.
STAR TV.
STAR TV.
That was 1991, I think (when I say `I think', I extend my error bar out to plus zero years and minus one year - so it could've been 1990 or 1991. No matter how many papers you might have read, you can't contest me on that one, so go jump in a well if you disagree. As David Suchet said in Poirot, Pardon me, Ma'amoiselle, do not try to deceive me. I KNOW!''). Elsewhere in the world (meanwhile, in Gotham City...), MTV was ten years old. In India, it was just being born. I mean, at least in my friends circle, it was something everyone had heard about but few had seen.
I guess I could compare it to the way Western travellers brought back strange stories from the East!
The people opposite my house had MTV, that's true, and maybe by then it was laaaate 1991 or early 1992... I'm not sure... What I *do* know is that the first set of videos of that time that I saw, I saw because Jeeshu was thoughtful enough to tape the Pre-Grammy Show on DoorDarshan (it was a Tuesday in early 1991, I remember, and it was also the night that this Brit show called Clarence aired for the first time, I know because he recorded that as well). What were the first videos I saw? Of course, the show was now sponsored by Pepsi - the concept of music being sponsored by cola alien to India until then, I think - and MC Hammer was promoting Pepsi, too. So we got to see Here Comes The Hammer (U Can't Touch This was shown during the Grammies itself, and not during the Pre-Grammy Show). And then, there was Mariah Carey going ``I had a vision of love, and it was aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaallllll that you've turned out to beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee'', there was Wilson Philips singing Hold On, Phil Collins asking us to ``think twice, cos its just another day for you and me in paradise'', Whitney Houston with I'm Your Baby Tonight, and the last video was Vanilla Ice with Ice Ice Baby. No matter what you say now, I'm sure quite a few of you remember that song because you thought it was cool at that time. You might act all cool now and say ``Of course not! I knew even then that it was shitty!''... too bad, people forget. I don't, at least not these things.

Speaking of Cola and music, remember the album that came out in 1991 called Pepsi Beat? They advertized for it with The Heat Is On... so I'm guessing it was summer 1991, so I must have been in tenth. Which makes complete sense, because after all, Dick Tracy was released in 1990, although we saw it only when we were in eleventh standard (1992), and Madonna's song Vogue was from her album I'm Breathless, which refers of course to her character Breathless Mahoney in Dick Tracy. So, anyway, Vogue was on Pepsi Beat. What else was on that album? Remember Pump Up The Volume by M.A.R.R.S.? Some Jody Watley song, too. Also This Time I Know Its For Real, a Donna Summer song that I *loved* at that point of time (and who could blame me - gotta find a way to get the message to you).

Anyway, coming back to the point of this whole discussion... so MTV was around. Things didn't happen that quick for pop, though. It was late 1992 and early 1993, when what I'm talking about happened. It finally happened. As far as I'm concerned, the credit for Indi pop-ularization goes to one (and only one) person.

Around that time, Baba Sehgal came out with his (second) album, Thanda Thanda Paani. I will definitely not discuss anything about this R.A.P. (Rahein Aap Pareshaan, as he keeps reminding us) genius here. He definitely deserves a whole page to himself. Maybe more.

The Ken Ghosh (I think?) video for Baba Sehgal's Dil Dhadke was the start of it all. By then, DoorDarshan had its first countdown show, SuperHit Muqabla. And one of the first non-filmi and non-ghazal videos on this show was of course Dil Dhadke. A huge hit, of course, and within three months, Baba's third album, Main Bhi Madonna, with the video for Baba Deewana, was out. I remember that me and Srinivas made a pact once we had satisfied ourselves with watching both videos: he would buy Thanda Thanda Paani, and I would buy Main Bhi Madonna. Not that we couldn't afford buying both casettes. Just that this way each would own one album, and we could save money. They were only about 35 Rupees then. This new shop had sprung up near our houses, and that's where we had seen Thanda Thanda Paani, and I remember I had to wait about a week for buying Main Bhi Madonna cos after all, it was a small shop and new releases aren't exactly all that new when they get to this guy.

And then, of course, after the summer of 1993, the last magic summer I have ever had, it was time for school again and it was June 5th or 6th when my parents finally gave in to cable (school started June 2nd or 3rd that year, and it was a couple of days later when I came back home and saw that we had cable).

``Ooooohh... Look, Dick, we got cayyybbbllleeee.....''
- Third Rock From The Sun

In most houses at that time, cable TV (at least, STAR TV) was heard of, but was only employed in conversations like `` You think we should get STAR TV!!?? The way you're doing at school right now, it will only ruin your studies further! Maybe we can think of it once you pass your twelfth board exam!'' or ``Cable-a! Why do you want to spend so much (at least in my house, at that time, the charge was a substantial amount for trying out something totally new) when it will only waste your time?''

I guess well before I got cable at home, I had heard quite a few of my friends grumbling that they had been asking their parents to get cable but they would always say it would affect your studies etc etc. After I got cable at home, I still kept hearing it from quite a few of my friends.

Soon enough, music videos for pop artists started showing up once in a while, and there were Indi pop artists, not just Chinese or Filipino or Japanese artists (some of whom I still remember and some whose songs I still can't get outa my head, be they in an alien language, and am never able to find on the net or on Bearshare, now that Napster is gone) on MTV! Some of the first: Hema (I'm not sure if this is the same Hema as Hema Sardesai) had a song whose name I forget, but I have been trying HARD to get hold of that song, because I simply LOVED it (if only because it connects back to the earliest days of MTV that I know, those magical days of 1993). Baba Sehgal's videos were playing, too. Anaida had her first video release, Hotline, sometime later in 1993, from her album Love Today Hai Nahin Aasan.

Help delivered to Indi pop from two non-resident Indians: Bally Sagoo (who remixed the whole Bhangra thing and had that compilation, Pump Up The Bhangra out, but it waited a couple of years before it got any videos out) and of course, the Don Raja, Apache Indian. For those of you who are frowning or puking, you may not remember, but I'm sure you guys were dancing to Chok There (maybe even shouting that thing out, without even knowing wht it mean - hell, maybe some of you even KNEW what it meant, you were so into it) or Arranged Marriage (at least the chorus to it, I guess). The title track of Anaida's Love Today...  of course was set to the tune of this latter song.

And that's how it started. You then had other people come out in 1994 - this Voodoo rapper dude, and Toofani Taxiwala, and the great Stylebhai (You say yo, I say namaste, you say what's up, I say kya karte!), Shaan and Sagarika, Mehnaaz, Alisha (eeyuucck) Chinoy (who, incidentally had been around for a while - her most famous album until then being Baby Doll, was replaced in 1995 by the record-breaking but hypocritically named Made In India, which was completely recorded in the United F#$%ing Kingdom. Its personal, people), Suchitra Krishnamurthy, Shweta Shetty (Johnny Joker, 1993), and who can forget Ila Arun??? She is another example of those people who came to the pop world after mild (in her case, huge, after Choli Ke Peeche) successes in background singing in the film industry.

Rock/Pop Rock: Garry Lawyer (same guy who did the ``Now you know, you must know this is your final hour'' song for Digjam, and the ``With a cigarette in my hand... I felt like a man'' song against smoking for public service) got his big break with Nights On Fire and The Other Side of Dawn, both of which were great songs.
Indus Creed, as I said before, came out with Pretty Child, and in 1995 came back with (what I thought was) their best work, Trapped. Whenever I'm out in the sun, anytime between 11 am and 5 pm, I'm humming, ``All alone, strange city, on a crowded afternoon... I've been standing in the darkness, I can see, there's no moon''. Strings 2, a Pakistani band, sounded great in 1993. Junoon got its big break in 1993 on MTV, I think, with their song Talaash.

And it goes on.

But who let the dogs out as far as Indi pop was concerned? This man and this man alone.