"It was revelatory for younger Asians"

January 5, 2023 9:48 PM

In 1982, no-one had ever seen a British Asian teenager in a sari singing Indian music on Top of the Pops – until Chandra appeared, with a raga-influenced single that would inspire musicians for decades. The music video. The article.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries (21 comments total)

Fuuuuck I forgot about this!

(Um, I mean it’s good that I forgot, inasmuch as that allows me to be reminded? I’m only saying it’s nice, having forgotten something, to be reminded of that thing.)
posted by aramaic at 10:01 PM on January 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

And here's the Hindi version which I've always thought worked even better.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 10:05 PM on January 5, 2023 [3 favorites]

She would also revisit it during her solo career.

Was that a standard set design for TotP in that era?
posted by Candleman at 10:32 PM on January 5, 2023 [2 favorites]

I never saw this!

A little younger and coming in later, I highly recommend all of Shiela Chandra's solo work as well as Monsoon. And wtf at Burning Mouth Syndrome for ending her singing career, hope she's doing well now.
posted by away for regrooving at 11:09 PM on January 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

I loved Sheila Chandra's work but had forgotten about it over the past 20 years. Many thanks for the reminder!
posted by Thella at 12:53 AM on January 6, 2023

If you're also wanting more from this era of music and its intersectionality with south-asian culture in Britain, please consider watching any of the documentaries from Gurinder Chadha. Her work is featured on Criterion.

“Best known for her breakout sensation BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM, prolific filmmaker Gurinder Chadha has been exploring the intricacies of British-Indian identity for more than three decades, bringing a playful and personal perspective to the experiences of women navigating questions of tradition and change within the South Asian diaspora. These early short documentary and narrative films—including I’M BRITISH BUT . . . , a firsthand look at second-generation Asians in late-1980s Britain, and A NICE ARRANGEMENT, a wry tale of a bride preparing for her arranged marriage—balance warm humor with thought-provoking insight in order to challenge and expand ideas of what constitutes “British” identity.”

Here's the trailer.

Highly recommend this.
posted by Fizz at 5:32 AM on January 6, 2023 [10 favorites]

Also, thank you for this post. I had never seen this video and it made me feel lots of feels. :)
posted by Fizz at 5:45 AM on January 6, 2023

This got used as the soundtrack for a fairly early SIGGRAPH computer animation demo video that ended up doing the rounds as part of animation festivals (somewhere around 1990 or so, maybe?) and for the longest time, that was my association with the song. Such a good song.
posted by rmd1023 at 6:08 AM on January 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

I loved her music many, many years ago. Had no idea there were videos. Thanks!
posted by Oh_Bobloblaw at 7:42 AM on January 6, 2023

Just listened to her Nada Brahma recording last night! She is fantastic. Her silencing due to disease all the more tragic.
posted by the sobsister at 7:53 AM on January 6, 2023 [2 favorites]

One thing I will say is that growing up as a South Asian in America, specifically Texas in the 80s and 90s, it was crazy hard to find S. Asian representation that was celebrated as opposed to stereotyped and/or straight up racist.

You did everything you could to find anyone who looked and sounded like you in music, tv, film, gaming. I'm glad that things are much better today (still not perfect by any means) but it was liking trying to find a drop of water in a desert back then. Our people were out there but it was often so difficult to find that stuff b/c it was just so hidden or buried underneath all the whiteness being produced and marketed into the mainstream.
posted by Fizz at 8:20 AM on January 6, 2023 [6 favorites]

the club mix was the one for me. And huge at the time toward opening my mind not so much to the notion that the rest of the world had music (I'd already developed an interest in so-called World Music*), but that it could be as pop and fun and beautiful and relevant as anything that was coming from the so-called West.



* what a stupid phrase! All music is world music.
posted by philip-random at 8:38 AM on January 6, 2023 [4 favorites]

Just listened to her Nada Brahma recording last night! She is fantastic. Her silencing due to disease all the more tragic.

Wow, that's so great. Reminds me a bit of Sussan Deyhim, who I love.
posted by lumpenprole at 10:45 AM on January 6, 2023

What an excellent post. Didn't know her music at all. Love this song and will listen to her solo music.

(Just coming out of lurking mode to answer Candleman's question:
"Was that a standard set design for TotP in that era?"
The clip is not from the UK TotP but from the Dutch program TopPop. The names are similar and so is the concept, , but TopPop much more than its BBC sibling had a tendency to go way over the top with stage designs. The youtube -official!- channel where this clip is taken from is full of lovely weirdness.)
posted by esha at 11:29 AM on January 6, 2023 [3 favorites]

what a stupid phrase! All music is world music.

I guess. But before whoever-it-was invented that marketing phrase, if you wanted to buy (say) a Sunny Ade record at the Virgin Megastore you had a couple of racks in the basement and afterwards there was a whole department full of all sorts of things. It did work.

I was aware of the Monsoon single, but it was her solo albums that really impressed me. I'm going to make an effort to listen to the RealWorld albums, which I was aware of but didn't buy (remember the days when whole careers could pass you by because they didn't fit in your monthly record budget?)
posted by Grangousier at 11:50 AM on January 6, 2023 [4 favorites]

I looked up what was on the same episode of Top of the Pops that Monsoon appeared on, and Ever So Lonely is the only song that sounds like it could’ve been released today.
posted by Kattullus at 2:19 PM on January 6, 2023

Was that a standard set design for TotP in that era?

"Hey, I need some set dressing for an Indian-style song."
"How about some teepees and a stuffed buffalo?"
"Uh, no, I think it's the other kind of Indian."
"Hmm. Well, we've got a couple of sphinxes and some Corinthian columns...?"
"Close enough."
posted by The Tensor at 4:07 PM on January 6, 2023 [3 favorites]

I was a teenager temporarily in the UK in 1982 when I heard a song on the radio – it sounded like nothing I had ever heard. I started recording to tape immediately, as you did back in the day, capturing maybe two minutes’ worth. There was no back announcement, so it remained a much-played curio in my taped-from-the-radio collection for a year or so until I heard it again and found out it was “Shakti (The Meaning of Within)” by Monsoon, which I immediately ordered on 7” vinyl: a ~decade later, Sheila Chandra’s The Zen Kiss was the first thing I bought from a startup called “Amazon”.
posted by michaelhoney at 10:22 PM on January 6, 2023 [2 favorites]

…on reflection, actually it was “Moonsung”
posted by michaelhoney at 10:38 PM on January 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

I looked up what was on the same episode of Top of the Pops that Monsoon appeared on

Not hugely relevant, but notice the appearance of Bardo, the 1982 representative in the Eurovision Song Contest: Not named after Bardot, the sex-kitten, but Bardo, the liminal space between death and rebirth in Tibetan Buddhism.
posted by Grangousier at 3:31 AM on January 7, 2023

I'm a sucker for 80s music and I've never heard this before - what a great song!
posted by Jess the Mess at 11:47 AM on January 8, 2023