Music Industry and Rock Music in Bangladesh - Perspectives from Young Educated People

Music Industry and Rock Music in Bangladesh:Perspectives From young Educated People

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1. Introduction

1.1 Basic Information

Rock music has been a volatile, unpredictable creature that has constantly redefined and reinvented itself. Not surprisingly, then, it can be extremely difficult to apply a straightforward definition to such a restless musical format.But while people may quibble over specifics, rock music can generally be described as hard-edged music performed with electric guitars, bass, and drums and usually accompanied by lyrics sung by a vocalist.1

Musically, rock has centered on the electric guitar, usually as part of a rock group with bass guitar and drums. Typically, rock is song-based music with a 4/4 beat utilizing a verse-chorus form, but the genre has become extremely diverse and common musical characteristics are difficult to define. Like pop music, lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political in emphasis. The dominance of rock by white, male musicians has been seen as one of the key factors shaping the themes explored in rock music. Rock places a higher degree of emphasis on musicianship, live performance, and an ideology of authenticity than pop music.1

The popularity of the band music was started enormously with the music of some famous band groups which had some mixed flavor of our melody with Western pop-rock stream. Nowadays in Bangladesh have almost 20 established bands. These are following famous rock music band in Bangladesh,

Souls, L.R.B, Nagarbaul, Ark, Arbovirus, Artcell, Aurthohin, Beduin, Black, Bortoman, Cryptic Fate, Dalchhut, Dark, Dour, Dreek, Eclipse, Embrace Of Death, Face to Face, Feedback, Hash (#), Lalon, Maqsood O' DHAKA, Mechanix, Metal Maze, Nagorik, Nemesis, Obscure, Pentagon, Powersurge, Prohor, Prometheus, Radioactive, Renaissance, Shironamhin, Stentorian, The Trap, The Watson Brothers, Warfaze.2 1.2 Background

It was in the mid 60's that Bangla rock music listeners discovered the art of creating music, reflecting the tasteful tunes and sensuous lyrics in their song compositions that came alive with extreme emotions of pathos and joy. For Bangladesh, it was a handful of self-taught musicians that got together to create original sounds and jump-started the rock scene like never before. Their efforts resulted in the birth of the 'Bangla Rock Scene'. Among the pioneering groups in the late '60s were iconic bands like Windy Side of Care (Ex-Iolites), The Lightnings, Rambling Stones, Ugly Phases and Insex Dui etc.3

There was another band from port city Chittagong was making splash into the band music named ZINGA. It was initially formed in 1963 by a group of young college students of Chittagong College. Zinga started its journey