The Golden Era of Dr.IR and Dr.SPB

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nanRi, balaji!

I do like the SPB songs of A-N-V but the others scored over them during college days due to many possible reasons. Looking back, it could be due to the huge transitions in (musical) taste due to the exposure in what could be called a "mini-america" that was only meters away from a TN village setting (i.e. the inside of REC campus where individuals with shorts / bathroom slippers / "love an enginIEEEr" roundneck shirts roamed around in brakeless bicycles).

Another development was due to a simple statement by a non-musical classmate who asked me 'did you hear "Thriller?". When I said 'No', he asked me another question, 'do you know MJ'. Again I said 'No'. His statement then was - you talk / discuss so much about music but don't know the #1 in the world!

I was in a state of shock!

Well, until that point, my exposure to music was primarily TFM and occasional Hindi songs / BoneyM / ABBA / western instrumentals that were used for march-past in school & circus (say, the piece called 'escape') and that's about it.

Now, his statement simply gave me a strong kick. What followed in another few days was a cover article in TIME that I chanced upon in the college library on MJ ("why, he is a thriller inside his world")! That same week, while loitering in burma bazaar, I spotted this cassette from Singapore (with a guitarist / STEREO logo) that had "The very best of Michael Jackson" and got it. It had beat it, girl is mine, thriller, off the wall, don't stop till you get enough, rock with you, I'll be there, billie jean among others. I had that cassette for another 20 years (and should still be in some corner in the house in India)

So, a big change in approach to music listening from the year 1983 and that thing, kind of reflected on the personal rating of songs that appeared during that transition period