Social Suicide

Music reviews don't matter. They are one person's/organization's perspective on an art form which is inherently subjective. Everybody listens to and experience music in different ways. However, music reviews have shaped and informed our discourse over the decades. Their existence has both put artists on the map and destroyed entire careers. 

Today, we live in a backlash culture. Any perspective seems to be met with scorn and anger by people who disagree with the reviewer's opinion. I feel like this is largely due to a misconception about the nature of music reviews, their place in our culture and what happens behind the scenes when it comes to writing a music review. Shanty (@shantanu_sampath) has written over a 100 reviews for A Humming Heart, a website which focuses on Indie Indian Music. In this episode, he shares his process when it comes to writing music reviews and the relevance of music reviews in a free-for-all and largely democratised digital space.

Radiohead are undoubtably one of the most seminal and groundbreaking musical acts of all time. However, this is not really a hot take at this point as the band's work spanning almost three decades speaks for itself. They are often labelled as depressing, mysterious, esoteric and even pretentious. The extent to which this holds true is up to the listener, but one thing is for sure: there has never been and will never be another Radiohead. The impact that Thom, Jonny, Colin, Ed and Philip have had on culture is undeniable.

Radiohead fanatic Meghana (@meghana_potta) joins fellow cult member, Shanty to walk through the band's core discography consisting of 9 studio albums and talk about each in vivid detail and how each album stacks up. The albums covered are:

Pablo Honey

The Bends

OK Computer

Kid A

Amnesiac

Hail To The Thief

In Rainbows

The King of Limbs

A Moon Shaped Pool

We've all been there. It hits you out of nowhere. You forget how you used to breathe without thinking about it. You feel walls made of nothingness closing in on you while you struggle to make sense of what you're feeling and why. Anxiety is encoded into our DNA as a means to detect and escape from danger using a fight or flight response. All of us feel and experience this from time to time. However, when it becomes a repeating pattern and you find the intensity of the emotions spiraling out of control - we have a problem. In this episode, psychotherapist Neha discusses common signs of anxiety, when does it become an issue requiring professional help and also some common misconceptions about this far too common phenomenon.

We hope this episode helps anyone going through similar situations. You are not alone and seeking help is never a bad idea. As always, our DMs are open for any questions and help of any kind. Stay safe. 

The end of a relationship (romantic, platonic or otherwise) leaves us perplexed at what went wrong and dreaming about what could have been. Fortunately, there are signs or behavioural patterns that you can look out for well in advance that can clue you in on things that are going astray or that things need fixing. These patterns are commonly referred to as "red flags" in relationships. With Valentine's Day approaching, there is no better time to talk about why relationships fail.

Drawing from her personal and professional experience, Neha throws a set of common scenarios that may or may not be a red flag at an unsuspecting Shanty. These scenarios were analysed thoroughly and nuanced conclusions were drawn for each to determine if they are in fact red flags. Stick around for the end where she talks about strategies to identify and address these red flags!

The Beatles represent the zenith of timeless cultural impact and influence. The legacy that the Fab Four from Liverpool left behind in just 8 short years is nothing short of miraculous. Over the five decades since their breakup, they have attained a legendary status that few even from Biblical times could match. This hype and reverence for this group tends to either leave newer audiences either overwhelmed or skeptical. In this episode, Beatles super-fans Sid and Sneha traverse through the entirety of their lengthy catalogue and go into the details of what exactly made them so great. They presented their well researched and passionate opinions and analyses of their core studio albums while talking about the highlights in each as well as ranking the albums in a tier list fashion.

Albums Covered:

Please Please Me  

With The Beatles   

Hard Day's Night   

Beatles for sale    

Help!             

Rubber Soul  

Revolver         

Sgt. Peppers' Lonely Hearts Club Band    

Magical Mystery Tour

The Beatles (White Album)

Yellow Submarine  

Abbey Road         

Let it be

We kicked the new year off with a refreshingly uplifting set of perspectives from writer, entrepreneur and positive vibe generator, Rushaki Ghosh (@stray_daug). Over the past few years, Rushaki has been very active in the music scene by taking up multiple roles from music reviewer to event coordinator to actual musician. She also recently co-founded the culture and trend mapping platform, The Culture Wire (@culture.wire). Also also, she has new music coming out both as a vocalist for Coffee for Giraffes (@coffeeforgiraffesband) and as a solo artist. 

She joined us on a chilly Saturday afternoon to re-center our worldview, which had been quite distorted after the dumpster fire that was the year 2020. Her life, like many of us in our 20s, has been marked with uncertainty and self-doubt with a helping of chaos. With every one of our attempts to dissect the enigma of just how she's been able to remain so positive and optimistic, she remained firmly grounded in her singular perspective - Fuck it; Just do it. It was a very inspiring conversation and goes to show that even when the world comes crashing down around you, the only one with any real ability to fix things is you. We capped the conversation off with her perspectives on the music industry and her exciting plans for 2021.

No diet is perfect. Virtue signaling and claiming the moral high ground based on diet is an obnoxious attitude and only leads to polarisation, negativity and misinformation being circulated. In reality, there are multiple routes to a healthy diet and the choice of a diet is a personal one and is based on cultural, economic and social factors among many others. Regardless of our choice of diet, the onus is on us to make sure we are meeting our daily nutritional requirements, recognize the potential pitfalls of our diets and be nice to people. 

Plant based diets have been rising in popularity in recent years due to certain environmental consequences, the ethics of how food is sourced and also a variety of health benefits. Devika Suresh (IG: @devs_suresh) transitioned to a completely plant based lifestyle earlier this year. She has also been quite active in the plant based meat space - an industry that is expected to skyrocket in value in the coming years. We shared our personal experiences with vegan diet and its impact on the way we perceive food, effects on health and also on our respective social lives. We went on to dispel common misconceptions about the pros and cons of adopting a plant based diet.

Useful Sources:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4991921/

2) Humans don't require animal products:

Dominion (2018) @dominionmovement

Reluctant Vegan Son: @reluctantveganson

Ordinary Vegan: @ordinaryvegan

Mike the Vegan: @micthevegan

5)Instagram pages to follow:

@veganclassroom

Fitness on a plant based diet: @fritz_horstmann

Recipes: @veganbowls @indian.vegan.recipes @chez.jorge

Please feel free to reach out to us on IG: @the.social.suicide for any clarifications, information or general discussions.

Are you in a musical rut all over again? Do you ever gaze at the night sky and yearn for a reprise from booming bass and rattling hi hats? Music aficionado Teju has got you covered! We spoke about our favourite music genres that do not get their fair share of our respect in the mainstream discourse. These are also musical genres/movements that were not only incredibly influential in shaping the sound of subsequent generations but also happen to have engendered our favourite albums. We also talked about the key characteristics of the genres and their background along with a few albums or artists to ease your introduction to their sound as some of these genres can be off-putting to the uninitiated.