The joy of discovering new music from old artists is incomparable. When I first discovered Labrinth, I found Earthquake, and then slowly discovered his story – how he signed on to Syco. I remember the first thing that struck me about him was that his appearance reminded me of Stromae, and I’m not entirely sure why. Song-wise, Earthquake was ground-breaking because it had vocals and electronic music by the same person.
But I don’t think I recognized the power of Labrinth’s vocals. I didn’t understand that till I joined University and was shown the song “Jealous” by a senior of mine. His vocal range amazed me earlier, and it still does. I had been caught up listening to relatively less “vocal” songs of his, things like Xpress Yourself, which reminded me of this old Red Nokia one of our friends owned.
I discovered Sia, as did the rest of the world, when David Guetta decided to make her the star of his music, and used her repeatedly for chart-topping singles. Ultimately I saw her breakout to fame with Chandelier, a song I felt described all my emotions – because I legitimately think of doing crazy things like that from time to time. But also, because teenagers think they can relate to every emotion from every song.
Diplo is someone’s who I’ve understood is like Pharrell. He’s well-known for some pieces of music, but it’s pretty certain that you’ll find him on the credits of tracks you like. He’s also extremely diverse – in terms of the projects he undertakes and the creative liberties he has with those projects. Take Jack U for example. The first time I heard “Where R U Now”, was on my way to Pondicherry with some of my best friends, and it was so off, to hear Justin Bieber on an electronic record. But my ears felt fuzzy and warm after listening to the song so, so often – it basically spent 6 days on loop.
Everyone was shook.
Seeing the new LSD alias they’ve assumed amuses and excites me. Audio, Genius, and Thunderclouds have all been really, really groovy records. And I cannot wait to see what they come up with next.
Tejas Rao 