How Watching Films & TV Shows Helped Me Discover Some Fantastic Music & Artists.
Being a small-town guy my exposure to English songs came very late. In fact, am still a noob. The first song I can recall listening is “Linkin Park’s In The End” on my Sony Ericsson t290i sent via Bluetooth by a friend. Then came some of Akon’s classics and then Enrique Iglesias, Usher, David Guetta, Pitbull, Jenifer Lopez etc. But understanding them was still painful. Half of the lyrics went over the head. I started googling the lyrics while listening to the songs but come to think of it I feel maybe it was a fad for me. Trying to fit in, be cool, pretend and all those shizz. But then it was a start.
Whenever I saw a friend listening to an English artist I googled their most popular songs and then played the songs I liked on loop.
Likewise, my exposure to the world of Foreign cinema and TV shows happened late as well but I caught up and caught up well because I stepped into Filmmaking and watching films and shows is the first thing you do to develop yourself. From Bicycle Thief to Citizen Kane I literally drank films and shows.
And since then films and particularly TV shows has helped me discover some really fantastic songs and artists.
Be it Breaking Bad’s last song “Baby Blue by Bad Finger” that plays when Walter White dies in ecstasy, “Cold Feet by Fink” from one of the episodes of Better Call Saul,” “ Dear Love of Mine By Daniel Spaleniak” from Netflix’s Ozark, The Wire’s “Way Done In The Whole by The Blind Boys Of Alabama” or film albums from “Hans Zimmer”, “Howard Shore’s Background music for Scorcese's film After Hours”. The list is long. Or maybe short. Lol.
The real discovery came from TV shows and films. No shame in accepting that I still refer to the lyrics. The autoplay feature of YouTube and audio apps have helped as well.
The same has happened with the discovery of Indian Regional songs. Not very long ago I was completely aloof of the mesmerizing Beauty of Marathi, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and other beautiful regional songs. Yet to discover a lot.
A few friends unknowingly helped in this quest of mine. A big thank you to their taste.
What I realised in the short span of my content consumption is that most of these artists are highly underrated and unappreciated and that’s heartbreaking.
But then that’s how it is. That’s how the world is. A stupid unfair place waiting for you to die so that they can announce and accept these phenomenal music composers, lyricists, sound designers and every other artist’s greatness and make them a hero.
