~The Infinite Hate project~

"Hey man, Why the fuck did you shell out 350 bucks for Death Magnetic? I mean their tracks were on limewire ages ago, why didn't you just download them?" The fake accent did not set my blood on fire. It was in the frank manner in which he expressed himself as if he was talking about a class 10 First Terminal examination that did.

Naturally I bothered to interfere and reply. My argument- Why Buy an M.F Hussain Painting worth crores? Why not just go take a picture of it using his 30 something mega pixel camera,make it look nice using an illegal pirated/downloaded version of Photoshop, take a printout on glossy paper and stick it on his Godforsaken wall? After which he should ideally further praise it and call it " Amazing Shit" and talk about what a genius of painter Mr. Hussain is.

Music is Art. I say this again and NOT for the last time. There is lot of hard work put in into creating a record. Yes even if its Timbaland.Even if its Himesh. Countless hours in a studio, Recording,getting the Mix right, Mastering, then getting it approved only to face rejection over and over again. And don't even get me started on what a struggling musician has to go through.

Music is art. To me An artist creates magic using his brush with paints of vivid shades of colour.A artiste composes magic using the instruments of his choice and choosing the right notes.His canvas- the 5 lines of the staff Or thanks to technology, software on his computer.

What disgusts me most is the way music is now treated like a bar of soap.
A mere commodity. What disgusts me even more are the "I luuuurve muzic"
"muzic iz ma oxygen"that kids write on their respective social networking site's profiles when they don't give damn.

There is a certain sanctity that was,that music has lost. I don't blame it on fast paced lifestyles.I don't blame it on Pricing. I blame it on a digital format called "MP3" If you don't know what that is...well, i can't really comment on that now can I?

This gem of a format not only kills audio quality, but saves space, So
you can cram a million songs on your digital player. Whatever happened to the CD??

There is a certain satisfaction that an individual receives in going to the record store looking around, deciding which artiste he or she would rather spend on, bringing it home and listening to it that seems to have been lost.

Yes I download. Yes downloading is what fuels my hunger for new sounds. But Yes I do make it a point of picking up that artiste's CD the next time I'm going to a record store. Though i must add That all the electronic music i have, save 45 tracks, i have downloaded.I have downloaded illegally from the artiste's myspace page. Why? because you simply don't get them in this country.

And remember something called Vinyl? You wouldn't. It went out of production before you were born probably. Vinyl is what a large chunk electronic genres prefer because it aids while Dj-ing and the Vinyl sounds very different form your conventional CDs.

But why did I give you that piece of "Gyan"?. You were too busy worrying about if I was attending rave parties. Somehow even though the older Indian generations(read above 40 years of age)appear(or pretend rather) to be very "with the times" the mere mention of the words "Trance" or "Electronica" "House" or "Nightclub" seems to make the emergency department of their very "with the times" active brain Fire Neurons up in overdrive. And don't even get me started on your regular rock Gig.(Don't bother telling me or my friends that you go for the beer and nicotine lest your in need of a broken nose or a dislocated shoulder.
(It doesn't matter if your a girl.)

Its amusing to see how people don't want to buy a CD, don't want to pay for A concert ticket,and yet insist that they love the artiste and their music.Its beyond my understanding. How people imagine their artiste surviving without support.There is this idea that "If he is on stage, he has got enough cash to last a lifetime of luxury" that i can't be a part of.Yet there still are millions, who save up, make sacrifices and buy those CDs, who PAY and buy tickets to attend those concerts. They aren't God sent saviours. They are among ones like you and me.They are the ones called 'True Fans'. They keep the music alive.

My only request is- Give music the sanctity it deserves. Treat it with respect. Across all decibel levels , across all genres.

Amen.