The naïve that I am, I said instantaneously, “No, I don’t listen to NSync anymore although I do confess I listened to a few of their hit singles in school.”[break]
“No, no, not that Justin,” she said, almost irritated at my lack of comprehension. She meant Justin Bieber!
A bit taken aback, I pointed out that there was no music in my iPod that was recorded after the 2000s, except for Coldplay and a few selective songs that sound “older” than 2000.
The intern, somewhat surprised at my inattentiveness to the latest hit chart, proceeds to tell me how great a singer Justin Bieber is, besides how “cute” he looks with his hair hanging from the side of his face.
Of course, Justin Bieber is a fine singer. As much as Bhuwan KC is a fine actor. No one doubts it one bit. But given a choice, the majority will choose to sit for Don2 over “Ma timibina marihalchhu nee” any day.
Music has always been about insinuation for me. Throughout my school and college days, I never followed the Top 10 Countdown. Instead, I relied on the tapes that were being passed around by my friends.
For I have long been convinced that the Top 10 Countdowns are a result of too much money in the hands of juvenile boys. And adolescent girls.
Nothing else explains the success of the Korean movies with the awful subtitles in a country where the literacy rate is below 30%.
The reason we have so many one-hit wonders like Dibya Subba is because most of us will listen to any damn song as long as the lyrics are about falling in love and breaking up.
And falling in love with someone else. And getting over their lost love. Or wanting their lost love back into their lives.
When women break up with men, they go out and buy scented candles and boy band albums to get over their broken hearts. Men buy alcohol.
So much so that sometimes they go on to become alcoholics. The fact that both of them buy in bountiful quantities has made companies like Glenfiddich a household name and bands like Backstreet Boys so goddamn rich that 18 years after the release of their first album, they’re still selling albums whose lyrics go like this:
Yeah
You are my fire
The one desire
Believe when I say
I want it that way
Tell me why ….
Predictably, the album’s a hit. Now that the wife and I are expecting, we’ve decided that if we’re to have a son, we’ll make sure he plays the guitar.
And I’ll make double sure he plays all the songs on my iPod. I’ll encourage him to do a mean Metallica, maybe even a bit of Led Zeppelin, to impress the ladies.
No boy bands. No girl bands. Just good old-fashioned music with perceptible lyrics.
Over a period of time, it has been proven that Rock n’ Roll endures and Jazz and Blues will never fade away. Every man alive living in Kathmandu, including the 601 MPs, unless they lived in those parts of the jungle which didn’t have access to FM stations, will somehow have learnt the lyrics of “Hotel California.”
You see, it’s what we do over beer at Karaoke sessions. While girls will sip wine and sing “Breathless” by The Corrs, we, the men, do Eminem and “Hey Jude.”
Fifty-five years after they first came together, I still know all the names of the men that make up The Beatles.
On the contrary, I’m pretty confident no one reading this column can name the four members that make up Westlife. Unless, you have an ego so big that you would want to Google the names and then get back to me.
I explain all this to the intern who seems to be finally catching on to what I’ve been trying to say all along. I figure, It’s not all true what they say about teenagers being unmindful and all that.
This one had been listening to me ardently all along while still continuing to fiddle with my iPod.
Suddenly, she puts the iPod down, looks at me, and in a gallant attempt to change the topic, says, “Dai, you should try a new aftershave. It’s called David Beckam.” According to her, even Victoria Beckam likes it.
You see? That’s what’s wrong with the world today. You would never find an aftershave called Led Zeppelin.
The writer is a banker by profession. He enjoys single malts and other good things in life.
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