Whoever said history repeats, said it right. We are back to the age of old school retro and pop music. These are the days of Adele, Lady Gaga, Coldplay, Bruno Mars, Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Justin Timberlake, Justin Bieber, Demi lovato, Adam Levine, Chalie Puth, Chainsmokers, Shawn Mendes etc. Gone are the days of Metalice, Megadeth, Slayer, Nickelback, Lamb of God, Iron Maiden etc. Kids unlike the ‘90s, nowadays wake up to Shake it off, Stiches, Motherf***ing StarBoy, Attention, Hello, Blank Space, Despacito, Love yourself etc. I remember starting my day with Linkin Park, Nirvana or Seather during school and college days.
The trend started changing back in 2014, when a lot of big names (DJs) started showing up in India; especially Bengaluru and the EDM seen started to grow.
There has been a massive growth in the pop industry due to the voice AGT, BGT and other forms of reality TV shows that promote Pop music. That in return, increased the pop music culture in India and we saw the massive shift from rock to pop. Just a couple of weeks ago, the great Rock’n’Roll band the Foo Fighters released a teaser talking about the new album, Concrete and Gold. Dave Grohl explains how this new producer, who is known to produce a lot of pop artists, like Lady Gaga helped them produce this new album where Foo Fighters kept their essence as the Foos, but the addition of the pop influence made it sound much bigger.
With the new development in the industry, as we see, has lead the live acts in Bengaluru to adapt to this new trend and perform a lot of pop numbers as the crowd too demands for the same. A lot of solo artists have popped out in the past couple of months and can be seen performing at a lot of venues, who belong to the Pop and Retro culture. In the early days, on karaoke nights you would see a lot of veteran artists/non artists sing a lot of retro numbers, but now you would find a lot of youngsters doing the same.
In my opinion, Rock’n’Roll was dying and still is in India, even after it being the most early form of music. But, this new world order is bringing back the old Gen-pop and retro back in the form of a new wave and it seems unstoppable. Even the Bollywood music has started to adapt to this change. Good or bad, let’s wait and watch!
The writer is a city-based music producer and artist manager.
