I love to declare that Pint and I have been blessed to have listened to really good music ever since we were little. Cue to waking up to my dad's tape recorder playing Enigma's Sadeness and Michael Jackson's Thriller on loop (Mind you, he did play Aigiri Nandini on festival days!). I decided that today I am going to reminisce about all the music that my father and later my big brother introduced us to.
(Image credit: https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/enigma-mcmxc-a-d-album/)
1) MJ DISCOGRAPHY
(Image credit: https://www.bellaballroom.com/blog/thriller-dance-background-history/)
I grew up on MJ's songs like a regular 90s child, my favorite being Thriller (very closely followed by Beat It and Billie Jean). I remember vividly having watched Chiranjeevi in a similar video that spawned a particular kind of nightmare for me! But I digress.
Here it is to jog your memory too!
(Image credit: https://vintagenewsdaily.com/golimar-this-indian-version-of-michael-jacksons-thriller-is-definitely-not-what-you-expected/)
While I enjoyed Smooth Criminal, Dirty Diana, They Don't Care About Us and literally all of Jackson's mainstream songs, I gave up on his music in the late aughts (the time when I became aware of pedophilia allegations against him). But the sentiment came back and haunted me the day he died. I was devastated like any other music lover in the world and started listening to him again! Like Pint says, I decided to separate the art from the artist. You cannot deny the fact that this man was a genius and ahead of his time when it came to belting out chart-topping, foot-tapping numbers. So while I definitely have no feelings about MJ anymore, I am guilty of enjoying his music and those unmissable dance moves! (I am 100% sure, all of us, at some point in our lives, have tried the Moonwalk!)
2) I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU- WHITNEY HOUSTON
(Image credit- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDA-iNJ7Zgc)
The first taste of R&B I had was Whitney Houston's music. It's my opinion that Whitney, along with Mariah, was responsible for popularizing Rhythm & Blues in the 90s. Even today, I know all the words to Houston's phenomenon of a song, "I will always love you". (I literally wasn't aware that it was an original Dolly Parton song until a decade ago because Whitney really made it her own.) I really liked the fact that it was on the movie, Bodyguard's soundtrack because it was a good choice for a love story between characters played by Houston and the ever-so-dreamy, Kevin Costner. With it's beautiful blues music and Whitney's inescapable voice, this song was bound to be an unforgettable super hit.
(Image credit: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-02-25/kevin-costner-and-whitney-houston-star-in-a-scene/1957092?nw=0)
3) J Lo'S MUSIC FROM 1999 THROUGH 2000s
Can you ever remember 1999 without J.Lo's Waiting for Tonight?? With her fresh voice, her angelic hair (no? is it just me?) and heavy R&B influence, J Lo became an instant sensation with this chart-buster and followed it up with more!
(Image credit: https://rathergood.co.uk/jennifer-lopez-waiting-tonight/)
My introduction to internet was probably through the "If you had my love" video where a goddess-in-white Lopez showed us how you move very little and still have the best dance moves ever! (Except for the part where the song goes super crazy and fast and you see some salsa!). To be honest, I think the video made it look like some perv was stalking her on her website where she was singing in real-time? At least, that's how it looked to me at the time.
(Image credit: http://rebloggy.com/post/jennifer-lopez-jlo-if-you-had-my-love/52874315707)
Some of her other songs I love are Love Don't Cost A Thing, Jenny From the Block (Ben Affleck applying cream on her butt should go into the most-cringe-inducing-scene-in-a-music-video Hall of Fame btw!), I am gonna be alright (I went through an emo-phase with this one!), etc (I am realizing I may have inadvertently leaned only towards mainstream music because I don't have a memory of listening to anything else!)
4) MARIAH CAREY DISCOGRAPHY
I think I had a spiritual awakening of some sorts with The Emancipation of Mimi! I exclusively listened to We Belong Together on my Sony Walkman phone while walking from my hostel to my college building throughout my first year of MBA!! My comfort music is a playlist of Mariah Carey and George Michael, this mix can never go wrong. The Songbird Supreme has an exhaustive list of Billboard No. 1's throughout her career but some of my favorites are My All, Vision of Love, Dreamlover (How fresh faced was Mariah in this video? :) It brings a smile on my face whenever I watch it), Hero, When You Believe (listen to this on a bad day and this collab between the biggest divas of our times will cheer you up instantly), etc.
(Image credit: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/155374255867080800/)
On a different note, I sometimes feel, she may have earned her right to be a jerk in real life because of all the records she holds and the Grammys she has won (The key word here is "sometimes"). Of her many antics, my most favorite is "I don't know her" with an innocent (!) head-bobbing! (:P). Sorry J Lo!
5) BRITNEY SPEARS AND CHRISTINA AGUILERA IN THE 2000s
Don't give me flak for Britney! You know she is the Princess of Pop for a reason. While their vocal ranges differ vastly, Britney & Christina did define the 2000s era of pop culture together. Their influence was on music, on fashion and on everything you laid your eyes on back then! I am not going to list out their songs that I love here because I am guilty of loving their entire body of work during the decade. Yes, that includes the guilty pleasure tracks Dirrty, Slave for you and Lady Marmalade! There, I said it!
(Image credit: https://www.bustle.com/p/britney-spears-baby-one-more-time-video-was-almost-animated-10-other-surprising-facts-about-the-20-year-old-clip-12596305)
While Christina's incredible vocals have a mind of their own, Britney's dance moves are definitely iconic. That's not to say that she is a bad singer in any way but I have to admit, Xtina's vocals are a tad better than hers! (Grammys 2000's Best New Artist award agrees with me). No, but the point is, they were icons in their own unique ways and being so young and talented, they made you dream big!
(Image credit: https://www.bustle.com/articles/81838-7-things-about-christina-aguileras-genie-in-a-bottle-that-you-totally-forgot-because-its-been)
The reason I call this the music that shaped me is because I feel that it has had a profound influence on the kind of world-view I have developed since childhood. Music opens you upto a whole new world - not just in terms of cultures but also in terms of moral values. It makes you realize that an artiste is an artiste, he/she is not "a formerly obese singer" or "a black performer" or "the gay artiste who recently came out" or any other stereotypes that the world thinks it's ok to refer to them as. Music transcends borders and makes you want to travel to all the wonderful places that it originates from or the videos are shot in! It doesn't stop at that, it makes you learn the new language, read up on the place, the kind of people, what makes them tick, what makes them happy, how are they different from us, and how embracing those differences brings you closer together. It also helps you find yourself through different stages of your life :) [Remember your metalhead phase?] Too philosophical?
Well, in Madonna's words, "Music makes the bourgeoisie and the rebel"!
(Image credit: https://gifer.com/en/5mUW)
My list cannot end here because there are still so many artists and songs that I haven't written about. I will continue this in a part- II ! Until then, why don't you check the rest of my blog? :P Ta ta!
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