‘Come join the rock gharaana’: The cultural politics of MTV’s Kurkure Desi Beats Rock On (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Global as the Postcolonial: Desire, Identity, and Liminality in Indian Rock
International Journal of Communication , 2016
This essay uses the concept of desire to reinfuse existing conversations about the postcolonial condition and its relationship with globalization. The essay uses the Indian uptake of the seemingly alien cultural practice of rock music to understand the confluence of vestigial structures of colonialism and a globalizing subjectivity that challenge unified notions of a national identity in India. By exploring media coverage of rock and testimony from musicians, the essay unravels the liminal spaces of destabilized identities and fragmented subjectivities that mark the global postcolonial condition. In doing so, it illuminates the role of structures, past and present, in shaping cultural desire and determining affective responses to global culture.
Music television and the invention of youth culture in India
Television & New Media, 2002
MTV is often associated with concerns about global cultural homogenization and the spread of a rebellious youth culture. However, the political economy of satellite television in postliberalization India has ensured the construction of a music television audience that is neither antinational nor antielder. On the basis of a reception study of music television in India, this article argues that audiences construct a sense of generational, national, and global identity in a manner that calls for a deeper understanding of cultural imperialism and audience reception. The findings of this study suggest that although the emerging youth culture in India does not seem confrontational in generational or national terms, it is not so much a case of audience resistance as that of co-optation by global hegemonic forces.
2017
This dissertation examines how discourses and practices of aspirational self-transformation are circulated, consumed, and materialized through sites of popular music practice. Focusing on reality music television shows, such as Indian Idol, and the new music schools that are emerging around them, this study combines nearly two years of multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork in Mumbai with close analysis of musical and visual media texts. I argue that popular music practice has become a privileged medium for imagining and cultivating new kinds of selves in the aspirational economy of globalizing, liberalizing India. Simultaneously, I show that these sites of aspirational musical practice re-inscribe social hierarchies based on class, caste, and gender, even as they espouse a meritocracy grounded in talent. iii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Anaar Desai-Stephens received a B.M. in Violin Performance from the Manhattan School of Music and an M.A. in Ethnomusicology from Boston University. She has studied Hindustani violin with Kala Ramnath, and Hindustani vocals with Warren Senders and Rajeshree Pathak. Her doctoral work has been supported by the Howard Mayer Brown Fellowship from the American Musicological Society and the Randel Fellowship from the Cornell Department of Music. Anaar has an article forthcoming in MUSICultures, and she has presented her research at national conferences in the fields of ethnomusicology, anthropology, and South Asian studies. She is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, where she is teaching courses on music and colonialism, film music, and South Asian musical culture. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work emerges from a lifetime of travel to India; more than a decade of studying, living, working, and researching in Mumbai; and out of a journey from being a professional musician to being a scholar of Indian music. As such, it is made possible by intellectual guidance, emotional support, and artistic mentorship from innumerable individuals. Woven through with insights enabled by so many, any mistakes are, of course, my own. In India, I am fortunate to have a large and loving family. In Ahmedabad, my extended family-Shrutimami and Falgunmama, Chitramasi and Maulibhai, Vijaymama and Hetalmami, Tikumama and Keyurimami, and all my cousins-have always welcomed me back to 38 Jawaharnagar at a moment's notice, nourished me with the tastiest Gujarati food possible, and enthusiastically supported my burgeoning interest in Indian classical music and then my research in reality music TV shows. Thanks, in particular, to Vijaymama and Hetalmami for thoughtful conversations on changes in Indian music and for introducing me to their musician contacts. In Mumbai, the Mehta-Vakil clan taught me how to navigate and love that crazy city; you, quite literally, kept me alive. My special gratitude goes to Jagumasi: from teaching me how to cook Indian food to offering a practitioner's rich perspective on the world of Indian performing arts and aesthetics. Your home has always been a place of great care, learning and reflection for me. This dissertation research was enabled by a network of informants whom I often met through the most improbable of circumstances. Many have subsequently become good friends v and, often, creative collaborators. For your insights and friendship, my sincere thanks to
MTV is often associated with concerns about global cultural homogenization and the spread of a rebellious youth culture. However, the political economy of satellite television in postliberalization India has ensured the construction of a music television audience that is neither antinational nor antielder. On the basis of a reception study of music television in India, this article argues that audiences construct a sense of generational, national, and global identity in a manner that calls for a deeper understanding of cultural imperialism and audience reception. The findings of this study suggest that although the emerging youth culture in India does not seem confrontational in generational or national terms, it is not so much a case of audience resistance as that of co-optation by global hegemonic forces.
Popular Musics of India: An Ethnomusicological Review
Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Studies
This article brings into discussion the presence of a contemporary popular music culture amongst globalised, urban, Indian youth which is perpetuated by Electronic Dance Music (EDM) festivals. This paper begins with the argument as to how there is no one monolithic popular music scene in India by presenting a historical analysis of a timeline for popular musics of India, a scene that has received scanty scholarly attention.
India in the nineties witnessed an era of prosperity that was propelled by several political and socio-economic phenomena. The rigid, oppressive bureaucracy or “license-raj” as it was somewhat contemptuously referred to, gave way to economic liberalization. This brought in a surge of several global TV networks such as Sony and STAR that gave a stiff competition to Doordarshan- the government-run TV network that was the only entertainment channel available in India until the early nineties. This coincided with the now famous (or rather infamous in the USA) globalization of India as a result of a lot of Information Technology (IT) related work getting outsourced. As a result of this newly injected wealth that outsourcing brought in, at least a small percentage of the population experienced the pleasure of having a disposable income. This set of well-educated people started travelling across the globe and consequently fine-tuning their tastes to what they held as “modern.” It was during this time period that Indipop rose on the horizon and in a very short time captured the music landscape. Admittedly, there is a lot more to Indian pop culture than the Indipop. There is really no dearth of popular art in India – be it music, dance, theatre and cinema to talk of. However, the Indipop phenomenon is something that I have experienced firsthand and really, grown up with. I present here a brief account of its rise and what it did to shape the identities of us, the millennial generation in India.
"Although there has been a great deal of academic analysis of both the punk/alternative subculture(s) and western (re)interpretation of Hindu religious traditions, to date no major work has delved at length into the intersection of these strains of thought and practice save the recent analysis of one element of the Hindu-oriented punk and post-punk subculture(s), the ‘Krishnacore’ phenomenon, currently being carried out by Associate Professor of Religious Studies Sarah Pike, at California State University at Chico. The notion of punk and post-punk as (a) revolutionary postmodern social movement(s)—supported by Curry Malott and Milagros Peña, among others—provides a template for understanding the negotiatory tactics employed by adherents to punk ethos. This thesis, then, will explore one of those tactics—the attempt to synthesize ostensibly Hindu elements and punk identity/ies—along the way illustrating punk/alternative subcultural modalities—practical and ideological—which have coalesced in such ways as to dovetail with existing, negotiated, or perceived Hindu religious worldviews. In so doing, this thesis will further support extant theories regarding postmodern approaches to religion via illustration of (re)negotiation of identity via religious tropes, and expose the practices and ideologies of a small but vibrant, religious subculture."
The Blazon Call of Hip Hop:Lyrical Storms in Kerala's Musical Cultures
Journal of Creative Communications , 2013
Hip hop and Rap has been available to various musical cultures all over the world inspiring the imagination of youth and politicizing them along the process. The release of a series of YouTube videos in India particularly in Kerala represents distinct response to the Rap music culture. In distinct yet interlocked ways these videos signal a changing musical culture in Kerala, one that is enabled by new networks and a rapidly changing techno social soundscape and its accompanying listening practices and music culture. This article is an attempt to map and analyze these practices through the video texts of some of these hip hop videos, websites and interviews with the artists and key actors. It analyzes the post globalization musical cultures in Kerala, mapping its techno-social and aesthetic practices and how they bear upon listening practices. It also maps the meaning of rap and hip hop in the Indian sub continent and its relationship to power and hegemony in the musical soundscape of Kerala. The article tries to theorize the emergence of a rap music video culture in Kerala and the Internet publics through the debates on public sphere and how they are caught up with questions of historical memory and identity.
BRICS| The Global as the Postcolonial: Desire, Identity, and Liminality in Indian Rock
International Journal of Communication, 2016
This essay uses the concept of desire to reinfuse existing conversations about the postcolonial condition and its relationship with globalization. The essay uses the Indian uptake of the seemingly alien cultural practice of rock music to understand the confluence of vestigial structures of colonialism and a globalizing subjectivity that challenge unified notions of a national identity in India. By exploring media coverage of rock and testimony from musicians, the essay unravels the liminal spaces of destabilized identities and fragmented subjectivities that mark the global postcolonial condition. In doing so, it illuminates the role of structures, past and present, in shaping cultural desire and determining affective responses to global culture.