There’s an interesting blurb from Tyler Cowen on why he thinks Desi music isn’t as popular in the West as other types of world music (at least for now… times are always a-changing, of course). Asked by a reader –
Why do the US (a wealthy country) and Africa (a poor continent) put out more influential modern music than Asia (a populated continent of both wealthy and poor extremes)?
Tyler responds –
3. The micro-tonal musics, as we find in India and the Middle East, don’t spread to many countries which do not already have a micro-tonal tradition. Cats wailing, etc., though it is a shame if you haven’t trained your ear by now to like the stuff. It’s some of the world’s finest music.
4. Many Asian musics, such as some of the major styles of China and Japan, emphasize timbre. That makes them a) often too subtle, and b) very hard to translate to disc or to radio. African-derived musics are perfect for radio or for the car.
The comnentors also make some important points. For example, even though we don’t see desi tunes in the West very much, they are all over the rest Asia (outside China/Japan/Korea), the Middle East, Africa, and even some former eastern block countries. Second, most Indian pop music it is driven by the film industry rather than by a separate “music” industry. Another commentor further expands Tyler’s point about the micro-tonal aspects of Indian music –
While there is no contemporary popular style that uses the scalar melodic microtones of the Ancient Greek enharmonic scale, both the Islamicate and Indian (Hindustani and Karnaktic) repertoires use intervals that differ audibly from the Western tempered scale by microtonal intervals, thus the Islamicate scales use both intervals very close to the western semi- and whole tones, but also intervals close to three-quarters of a tone and somewhat wider than a whole tone (with a ratio of around 8:7). A scale approximating a western diatonic scale is possible in both these repertoires, but is only one among 18 or so in wide use in Arabic/Turkisk/Persian music and among significant many more in Indian practice.
I’m going to go way way way out on a limb and toss out another personal, vastly underinformed, pet theory on this question. Instead of musical structure, language barriers, and the like I also wanna toss in some cultural context…
Although I speak / understand basically zero Hindi, I can still readily feel a certain cultural optimism / fantasy in a lot of Indian music. When the singer speaks of love, longing, lost, and the whole lot, it really is coming from a deep, pure place in the heart that’s uncorrupted by the acknowledged Tragedy of the modern world. The world is great as-is or could be just around the corner. Good and Bad are clear. And for both better and worse, there’s a lot of escapism.
By contrast, a LOT (though clearly not all) of today’s Western music is about, well, the Tragedy of the post-modern world. You were fooled by love until your boyfriend / girlfriend went psycho and slept with someone else in the band. A song about parental love is likely to be about the lack of it and that’s the reason young Jeremy started a fight in school. Everything’s screwed up and we’re not gonna take it. He’s only sorry he got caught. Ideals are tools of the Man and the opiate of the people. The real world is cynical, only things you can physically smack are real and everything else is equally good or equally bad. And so on and so on…
So, in that sense, thematically, Indian pop music often has more in common with American Country than globalized Rock and Roll & hip-hop. AND, this invites many of the same judgements from the mass Western cultural market. Don’t they know that “sophisticated” sad music is supposed to be about existential angst rather than love lost? And that “authentic” happy music is about chemical highs, sporting bling, or tonight’s ecstasy rather than looking into her eyes?
I know I’m painting with some very broad brush strokes here and exceptions abound but I really do think that when folks in a Bollywood frame of mind want to listen to some tunes, the last thing they want is sophisticated cynicism. And I think a lot of modern western culture has a tough time with all that sappy naivete (country music again being the massive exception).
So, all these stray thoughts are far outside of my usual blogging comfort zone and I suspect we’ve got some serious Indo- and Western-music philes in the SM cabal. What say you? 
Great observations, Vinod. To which I will add: the dominate mode of our postmodern artistic tradition here in the West is irony. Other traditions, obviously, don’t share that world-weary individualism. Indian music is tough on the ears of a culture that sees the un-ironic as unsophisticated and silly. The un-ironic stuff we do have (like ABBA or Air Supply or Broadway) is relegated to camp or nostalgia. Irony is all. And it wasn’t Alanis Morissette’s doing. When we stopped believing that “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,–that is all / Ye know on earth and all ye need to know” and realized that The Truth is really quite ugly (trench warefare, gas chambers, nuclear annihilation, My Lai, Abu Ghraib), we found unbridled optimism repugnant. So Bollywood won’t catch on over here.
Here’s ends your 120-word overview of Western art of the 20th century.
I can understand why Hindustani & Carnatic music is not popular – These forms of music are highly evolved (Over 800 years! See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnatic_music) and use complex beats that makes it hard for the common person to “tap their feet”. On the other hand some Bollywood music did cross over – Chaiya – Chaiya (Featured in Inside Man) & Mundia de Back Ke (Punjabi MC) and probably more that I am not aware of.
People here know. Zakir Hussain sells out every show he plays in the west and it’s not only the desis who go.
Preston, “…we found unbridled optimism repugnant ?”
In america? You gotta be kidding. Have you seen any news about foreclosures or disasters on CNN? The interviewees are unnaturally composed and air brushed. America is champion of keeping up appearances.
I think the “we” is a minority – those who are looking for the truth under the gloss.
BTW, Asians were not brought over as slaves. Apples and oranges IMHO.
interesting post. as an example, the east and west do meet occasionally in utterly charming ways . [song is from hindi movie chaya and is seeded with mozart’s symphony num 40].
Should we bother about a post containing all these gems. Well let’s see of we can. Tyler Cowan discussed sound, not the lyrics, and Vinod from there jumped in without any expertise in either sound or lyrics. OK that’s SM poster’s privilege at work – to hold forth on anything under the sun.
Reading too much into the song gives too much credit to the listener. Don’t we all know the great cultural critic Ronald Reagan thought Springsteen’s Born in the USA is a “patriotic song” – the Reagan kind of patriotism? [Who knows maybe even Vinod thinks so?] Till an embarrassed but intelligent aide nudged the old man to tell him what it was all really about.
So, this is what a personal post by vinod would look like. You should skip the serious part and do pure personal posts, now that you have your feet wet 😉
In a discussion of this sort, a good idea of whether the assertions being made hold true or not can be made by applying it to the other side concurrently. Thus is Western Music popular in say Asia? If so, are people who listen to Hindustani or Carnatic able to enjoy western rhythms or its purely those who do not know these music forms who enjoy western music? Do people in the west who listen to western classical listen to mainstream western music? Are different Asian music popular in different parts pf Asia itself? Thus while middle eastern music is fairly popular in India and vice versa, is east Asian music popular?
Bollywood music and even popular music responds to many needs, and while one of them is escapism, the whole genre packs in various kinds of emotive nuances and diverse audience niches. If you listened to Pearl Jam and concluded that all American pop is cynical soul-searching — you would be WAY off the mark. The market contains exuberant/annoying Christian pop, middle brow ‘adult alternative,’ dance pop, country, a certain commercially robust strain of rap, hiphop, and R&B — all of which sells well, and is not related at all to the ‘tragic postmodern human condition’ or whatever meaningless catchall phrase you’ve chosen to characterize ‘sophisticated western music.’ By the way, the word postmodern actually means something and one can’t use it gratuitously to sound profound.
really, romanticization of oriental/eastern/native cultures has been passe among the intelligentsia for quite a while now. this post makes you sound like gullible Margaret Mead.
Indian film music = sappy naivete? is massively simplistic and fallacious.
Bollywood film music, should you choose to actually understand it, contains (among various other well-defined genres) irony, humor, and cynicism (apparently the hallmarks of ‘sophisticated’ lyrics). Corruption, society’s obsession with mores despite its ultimate indifference, money, materialism, the anomie of big cities, the standard bitterness toward a fair-weather lover, over-the-top devotionals, and all shades of romantic love feature etc etc in Indian songs. Some Indian film music is well-crafted (Gulzar, the lyricist, is an example of someone who is capable of real humor and sarcasm as well as really emotionally intense evocative songs on the other), and much is not — I don’t see how this is different from mainstream American music. Yes, Indian music may not be influential in certain parts of the world, perhaps because of its sound (as Cohen and Jyotsana point out) or because of the language barrier. But it’s definitely not because it is uncorrupted by the postmodern predicament of the human condition or whatever or because it includes only sappy naivete. Desi music has worked when it has been sampled, and also breakout songs like Chunari-Chunari have become popular with younger people because of the success of individual movies Monsoon Wedding. Just because pop-infused Desi music like that shows signs of being popular/better-known and potentially successful in non-Indian markets does not prove that Indian music at home is just candyfloss.
Alot of people who like Indian instrumental music find female filmi vocals to be too annoying. Like Kate Bush and Fran Drescher has a baby and sent it to Harvey Fierstein for voice lessons.
Don’t we all know the great cultural critic Ronald Reagan thought Springsteen’s Born in the USA is a “patriotic song” – the Reagan kind of patriotism? [Who knows maybe even Vinod thinks so?] Till an embarrassed but intelligent aide nudged the old man to tell him what it was all really about.
And the senile buffoon brushed aside the concerns of the aide and continued to peddle his Born in the USA – Patriotism song nonsense anyway. Springfield then dedicated ‘Johny 99’ to Reagan.
11 · louiecypher said
Sure. That is probably true. That just means the music and vocals are poor. But agreeing with that observation doesn’t entail that the whole music industry in India generates only low-brow, sappy “naive” music. If I looked at the usual list of summer movies out in the USA and came up with the observation that all Hollywood produces is action movies with tons of CGI or barely palatable romantic comedy or a moralistic tale of a cute animal overcoming adversity, I would be wrong.
13 · Pagal_Aadmi_for_debauchery said
Yeah, rick springfield was subversive
Most exhausting sentence.
I’m not sure it isn’t popular. Do you mean popular as in the Top 20 kind of popular? If so, what commercial radio station is going to play a Bollywood song that is on average about 8 minutes long? but hey, I’m hearing desi music more and more in commericials and films. It’s evocative stuff. No irony necessary.
Dude it’s his OPINION and his thoughts…he’s just throwing it out there for discussion…he never said it was the final word on the subject…CHILL…and it is their privilege to hold forth on anything…if you don’t like it don’t read (or better yet) comment on the blog.
13 · Pagal_Aadmi_for_debauchery said
You see he had a short memory way back then!
There’s so much of music to mine in India with the 100s of movies and the many songs in each one of them. As I enjoyed Gulzar, Yogesh, Shailendra, and Sahir Ludhianvi, I would tell my friends in the Bombay and Delhi about the Kannadasan, Kalyanasundaram, Vaalee, and Vairamuthu, that I greatly enjoy in Tamizh. Till my Oriya friend introduced me to Akshay Mohanty and Bhupen Hazarika! We write about the times we live in. And we have travelled a long way from Gilbert and Sullivan’s Mikado to Rodgers and Hammerstein, while taking in some Woody and Arlo Guthrie, Pete Seger, all the way to Springsteen, Dave Mathews, Ben Harper, and Jack Johnson. There’s a tonnes of music around and we can enjoy it all.
little known fact: reagan was a postmodernist who knew the author is dead, aspects in the text itself undermine its own authority or assumptions and that internal contradictions erase boundaries or categories which the work relied on or asserted. A deeper substance of text opposes the text’s more superficial form. Texts have multiple meanings and the violence between the different meanings of text may be elucidated by close textual analysis.
13 · Pagal_Aadmi_for_debauchery said
We are supposed to care about this? Why?
I second that. Most indian female vocalists are extremely irritating high pitched monotonous copycat drones, all apparently imitating some idolized desi songstress who really does not deserve such flattery. There is far greater variety among male desi singers. From Bhimsen Joshi to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan there are some truly world class male vocalists from the subcontinent.
Indian pop music is showing up in America; it just isn’t getting credited. ^__^
Also here: at 2:58.
And here.
(Though it spoils the surprise, they’re Black Eyed Peas, Stick It, and Inside Man, respectively.)
Another typically desi wild exaggeration. Reminds me of the foolishly puffed up posters here and in other desi forums who boast how the chinese are all crazy about bollywood and indian music…..just because some old cab driver in Beijing sang some verses from “Awara Hoon” to them 🙂
21 · Mac said
OK. So we will ignore MSS, MLV, Parveen Sultana, Kishori Amonkar, Sudha Raghunathan, Begum Akhtar, Suman Kalyanpur, Asha, Bombay Jaishree, and so on… And while we are at it we shall also cast our nets wider still and forget Abida Parveen and Runa Laila. The idolised desi songstress gets on my nerves and is simply a singing puppet on a string, not a musician or a musical performer. She cannot sing from memory and is monotonous. Let’s not even talk about her.
wow, the commenters on this weblog are such insightful geniuses! must be why they continue to read these morons who have posting privileges.
gwen stefani’s quite popular in the west
‘Foreign’ music is adopted not because of meaning, but because of the way it resonates with the body (rhythm, beat) and how it connects to emotions (melody).
See how easy it is to resonate to western pop music. Now imagine the same happening with Hindustani/Karnatik/Melody-Bollywood (though pop-Bollywood may have similar effects). Resonating to the former set probably needs more sophisticated body movements, as you see in Hindi movie choreography (and also the spontaneous gestures used by classical music listeners). It is difficult to scale up to that body movement style from body-movements organized around Queen-type beats.
In the reverse direction, bodies used to resonating to more fine-tuned rhythms may be put off by repetitious beats. Note that music is remembered from the womb.
Here is some interesting research on the link between body movement and music.
As a blogger put it once, she is a “chipmunk on helium”. I like her though, especially some of the old tunes.
Or here (Ghost World + Gumnaam). Or here (Anderson + Ray)
Mac
Most indian female vocalists are extremely irritating high pitched monotonous copycat drones, all apparently imitating some idolized desi songstress who really does not deserve such flattery.
hear, hear!
I found this factoid interesting (the influence of Irish and Scottish music on south indian classical music in the 18th century).. Who would have guessed?
Vismaya – An Indo Celtic Musical Journey is a contemporary compilation of the notusvara sahityas of Muthusvami Dikshitar recorded with Indian voices and western instrumentation. Dikshitar (1775-1835), is one of India’s foremost composers, in whose hands European tunes that came to India with the British East India company, transformed into catchy songs in sanskrit, known as nottusvara sahityas easily accessible to children.
http://www.kanniks.com/vismaya_page.htm
Here’s a link that talks about Hindi films and songs in the 1950’s and how they were received in Greece. Seems that many Greek tunes also found their way into Hindi songs.
http://www.sangeetmahal.com/journal_hindi_films_greece.asp
I’ve been away from Sepia Mutiny for almost a year.Good to be back.
My two cents – i have always felt that “Western” music is more instrument dominated (Western classical music – the stars have been Bach, Mozart, Beethoven et al) as well as rock today (with assorted techno stuff, guitar, drums and bass effects heightening the decibels); while in Indian music, vocals have always dominated the instruments (Tansen, Baiju Bawra to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan et al).
Desi tunes are popular in the U.K.
that’s seriously racist to go on about genetics in such a disparaging and obsessive way. it’s the same as that japanese academic who said that developing countries are poor because its inhabitants are predisposed genetically to being less intelligent. i don’t know why the facilitators haven’t closed this thread. i’m not visiting this site anymore as it’s very disturbing for me to not know the identity of the peolple who are writing in. they could be anyone and have unfortunate motives.
Mmm, yeah, VERY broad brushstrokes… and while I’d say there’s a kernel of something interesting there, I think your “Western music” example (and what you’re referring to is really just a certain subsegment of “American” music) is way too narrow in scope. I’m not sure I buy that Bollywood music is more inherently “optimistic” or “less cynical.” In other words, I think there’s plenty of “sappy naivete” in American popular music.
As for the original question as to why African music is more “influential”: I’d want to grill the questioner on what exactly he means by that and why he is of that opinion. I’m a huge fan of African music but I don’t know that I see it as huge in the West or America; it has fans to be sure, but not necessarily many more than Indian music (and what about the huge “influence” of Indian music in the late 60s and into the 70s? Ravi Shankar is as big a “rockstar” as Mick Jagger among a certain demographic). I also agree with those who’ve commented that there’s a huge difference between the classical and popular Asian repertoire, so any analysis needs to take that into account.
Also, the original answer’s references to “Asian microtonal complexity” and “African-derived rhythms” seem a bit oversimplified too: I would say that the singing of Oumou Sangare or Baaba Maal would not necessarily be considered “perfect for the radio or for the car.” A lot of generalization all around here. Again, I’m having trouble with the validity of the original question itself. Good topic though.
22 · Blue said
Also this. Lord of War (Bombay Theme…sorry to give it away).
Indian culture is also widely perceived to be less cool than african culture.
Wait, can we clarify what’s meant by Indian music? The examples have mostly included Indian classical (sidenote: American classical is also not popular) and Bollywood (and I don’t know of ANY soundtracks except The Bodyguard that have ever made top 10 in the last 20 years. Then again I’m young, so who knows).
It just seems limited, and not really accurate, to say desi music hasn’t taken off in the West; it depends on what you’re talking about and the format in which it appears. Bollywood and bhangra are all over hip hop, and desi music (and mixed music) is super popular in the UK. There’s tons of Arab and Indian-inspired fusion hip hop in France. We could talk musical theory a little, but I don’t think it has quite so much to do with listenership as is implied. African music also uses highly complex musical systems that don’t appear in classical Western music, and yet it’s the backbone for almost all contemporary popular music in the U.S., including country and folk.
How are we measuring influence? Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan is widely known/heard in the “world music” crowd and probably places somewhere alongside Youssou N’dour for popularity. The wide incorporation of African rhythmic structures in contemporary American? The development of innovative genres informed by non-Western classical structures (e.g., jazz, blues, later rock)?
Camille, thanks for your posting. I am an ethnomusicologist, and I agree with you completely. Popular music is driven very differently in South Asia, and the US; yet, there is a huge desi influence in Western popular music. Vinod, while the impact may not be as visible in the US as musics with other foreign origins, this most likely has to do with population prevalence and time.
Simple, Just pick up our great music, change the lyrics to western lyrics (doesn’t mean something like “I am your Apple, Ur my Banana, Let’s have some Tana-nana!! variety) that has good standard and meaning of the lyrics such that they can relate to their culture and I am sure it’s going to sell like hot cakes.
35 · maya said
Maya, whichever world you are living in, it is not the SM world inhabited by the likes of Razib and Vinod, unicorn cataloguers extraordinaire!
It seems like we’re mostly talking about melodies and vocals here, right? Because bhangra rhythms are obviously taken up here and there in hip-hop tracks, and tablas have been used all over the place since the ’60s. But even Madonna did her Ray of Light thang. Asian Underground developed because the drum n’ bass heads felt a resonance with that and complicated Indian rhythms, right? Musical fusion comes in bits and pieces, I’m sure we’ll get more Indian melodic influence sooner or later, esp. as Americans become more and more familiar with Bollywood (see: So You Think You Can Dance, etc). Snoop Dogg just did a track for a Bollywood movie, so the more that artists on both sides are meeting and creating with each other, it’ll become more common.
I think the American-African connection is more obvious — rock music developed from black American styles, Africans heard that and created their own brand of pop, Paul Simon grabbed some of those musicians and made Graceland, etc etc. Isn’t it all just endlessly feeding each other? I’ve been hearing the Ethiopiques complilation everywhere this summer, some recently unearthed rock/jazz tracks from Addis Ababa in the ’70s — some of it sounds like a weird African James Brown, it’s awesome. So it’s all just musical conversations through different eras, some take root and some don’t.
The comments about Western/Eastern scales probably have a lot to do with it, though. But that’s why fusion music is a way of introducing those things to the masses. I’m a gori who first heard Indian music as a teen through the pop artist Najma and loved it. I don’t know why. I was into all kinds of world music for years (thank you dad, for introducing me to NPR’s weekly Afro-Pop show), but always preferred South Asian styles above all. I can’t get into Chinese pop music in the same way, it doesn’t sound as friendly to my ears. And my brother the former hard core punk rocker has recently developed a passion for bluegrass and American folk music. I think there’s probably just no accounting for personal taste. 😉
I completely agree with Camille, also you have to define what is popular, desi influences can be traced right back to the Beatles, corner shop’s remixed brimful of asha reach number one in the uk charts in 1998, Jay Z sampled PMC during his festival shows this summer. jagjit Singh and adnan sami toured the uk with huge arena sold out shows.
End of the day it’s all money, if the record company, MTV, radio gets behind it then it will be all over the place. Does that mean it is popular??
Also I hate describing it as “world musicâ€. Wonder what it is like in a record store in india. Bollywood film’s are sectioned off as bollywood, not world cinema, does that mean it popular?
ps nout wrong with american folk, remember “this land is your land, this land is my land”
I love Indian music….carnatic, hindustani all of it! And bollywood music is so catchy! A R Rahman, KK, Kailash Kher, Atif Aslam, you rock guys!
41 · EMC3 said
those lyrics are genius. where can i find the track? 🙂
Thanks to rudie_c (long time no see! hi!!) and Ravi. I also forgot to mention Jeff Buckley (not mainstream “popular”, but kind of when we think of contemporary musical influence in pop and among the hipster crowd), who uses the harmonium and desi scales in a Western paradigm. Along the same lines as the Beatles are Led Zeppelin, who also get into the “Eastern scales.”
I think your point is really interesting, Vinod, I’m just trying to separate the huge categories we’ve constructed here. 🙂
39 · Camille said
The soundtrack for Disney’s High School Musical was, I believe, the best-selling record in 2007. There is definitely–and there will remain to be–a gigantic segment of the American listening public that want irony-free music. Look at country!
It seems to me like this discussion got off on a bit of apples-to-oranges comparison– theinternational appeal of western pop music, specifically hipster-age rock, vs. that of indian classical. There’s also another concern– why aren’t desi musics as popular in the ‘world music’ set as african? It can’t be the presence of a language barrier..so…..?
coming from a promoter’s standpoint–and you’ve got to figure this matters, the summertime festival circuit is a very, very big part of the international and ‘world music’ circuit– something like Ladysmith Black Mambazo or a Senegalese drumming group is more fun to watch than ravi-ji on a dais. The energy appeals to a broader base.
Bhangra’s got a slight foothold in the states, sure, though it definitely feels like it had it’s time to shine here and the artists, overall, aren’t that concerned w/ the U.S. market when the India, UK, and Canadian markets are so big. Also, keep in mind that the production values of bhangra largely keep it out of the running of the cutting-edge, blogosphere world of music consumers. Sure, Baile funk got a lot of people’s attention, cumbia’s getting them interested now, reggaeton continues to grow in popularity– but the majority of bhangra remains too cheesy to get people into it beyond those who already ‘get’ it. Reggaeton sounds like another nation’s hip hop; 80% of bhangra sounds like punjabi wedding music. Such is life.
I can’t imagine that bollywood will get roots in the states beyond good old American ethnocentricism (the colors! the big dance numbers! the clothes! the great wedding sequences!). Besides that, the recent trend of english-sung choruses (all hot girls, put your hands up and say, om shanti om) are really, really off-putting.
and that’s without touching on the hot mess of “singh is king.”
” Besides that, the recent trend of english-sung choruses (all hot girls, put your hands up and say, om shanti om) are really, really off-putting” Why is it off-putting?? Give me one good reason? Om Shanti Om songs are sooo good! Is it only because it is in english? The ABD (I am tempted to put C in here) commenters need to know that people in INdia have no dislike of english…we love english language and think of it as our own and no different. After all we have been speaking it longer than you have!
Great observation Vinod !!! I always tell my friends that since the west has so much wealth and people are not really scared about their future, they manufacture “sadness” and create these dark tunes. On the other hand India has many people who are poor and worried about the future their songs are mainly about happy times and expression of joy.
Jeremy had it way better than a poor kid in Orissa. IMO, ofcourse.
Yes, sold out to desis.
Listen to the latest album by SWAMI…it’s amazing…if promoted right I think it would blow up with a lot of non-desis.
I disagree, there is a LOT of new “bhangra” music being churned out in the U.K every month, not all of it is good by any means but quite a lot is, quite a lot is not cheesy, and quite a lot does not sound like wedding music. However there are some major barriers to it achieving widespread acceptance which are more socio-cultural-linguistic and I don’t think it will ever find a much wider audience than it has now. There’s a difference between people who like it (or think of it) as just fluff to dance to while drunk, and others who can appreciate the background, wordings, history, as well as the innovative efforts of the people who produce it and put it out there.
Yes Georgia we know.