The News Minute | August 29, 2014 | 11:15 am IST
English rock, pop and indie are the usual music favorites of the hip and fashionable, but many in Chennai think otherwise. For many rock enthusiasts, nothing could beat the joy of listening to a song in their mother tongue, Tamil.
Chennai’s ever-burgeoning rock scene is a club house of talent, but to many rock bands in the city nothing could sound closer to home and reality than a rock song sung in their own language. Grasshopper Green, Chennai’s only band to play original compositions since the nineties has been playing music with a mix of English and Tamil, according to The Hindu.
Any Chennaite can connect with the words of Grasshopper Green band member Sunil Philip as he says that “most people in Chennai don’t talk fully in English; a little bit of Tamil creeps in,” said The Hindu report.
“That’s exactly how we approach our music; it’s conversational,” he told the Hindu.
Another band asked themselves this question “Yaen namma oorula boy band illa (why is there no boy band in the city?)?” .This led to the formation of Namma Ooru Boy Band (NOBB) comprising Josh and Varun Parandhaman. Ninety percent of their lyrics are in Tamil, said The Hindu report.
Chennai isn’t short of access to local Tamil rock, Jhanu is yet another band belting out interesting Tamil numbers that have connected with even audience from Kerala in a big way.
Film music has always trumped other music styles in Chennai, but the niche audience that bands like these have cultivated only means that they are connecting their audiences with their Tamil roots.
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