By 1996, Junoon had released four albums and had a leading cult following from across the country. Yet the best was still to come. In retrospect, it’s easy to see why Junoon clicked with a mass audience — they weren’t as pop oriented as Vital Signs or earlier bands and of all the Pakistani’s bands in early 90s, their sound owed the greatest debt to hard rock. With their riff based sound, sufi- urdu poetry laden lyrics and expansive masterful vocals, Junoon became the forerunner of south Asia’s rock loving …

Rock Street Journal (RSJ) is a hard rock magazine that has been popular in the college circuit for years. Now, they’ve set up a music label to popularise the indigenous bands even more. The idea is to finance a band’s studio album, which they give out free (on cassette) with their magazine. It’s a very laudable idea no doubt. On the consumer side though, it isn’t quite as exciting. Frankly, it’s the magazine that’s really being given free with the album. If you remove a couple of Sam Lal pieces, …

With Indian economy seeing massive growth, last decade saw heavy influx of International acts into the country with sponsors putting in money and effort to nurture this segment. There was definitely a magnitude of large commercial possibilities and rock music with decades of alternative presence in urban India was bound to catch early attention from industry practitioners. Lucrative as it may seem, all is not well with this sector of music industry.

Why Anjan Dutt’s Bandra Blues is important.