Big in India: Decoding the enduring popularity of Michael Learns to Rock, Poets of the Fall

I’ve often wondered why certain acts become popular in certain territories, the so-called Big In Japan phenomenon. Traditionally, for you to really “make it”, you need to have achieved some amount of success in the US or UK, two of the most prominent music markets in the world. Over the last two decades however, thanks to the internet and the expansion of global touring opportunities, it has been possible for an artist or band to have long-running careers without ever having touched the charts in either of those countries.

Two international acts that come to mind when I think about bands that are in Big In India are Denmark’s Michael Learns To Rock, whose greatest hit album Out of the Blue is a fixture on iTunes pop albums chart, and Finland’s Poets of the Fall, who will tour India for the sixth time this year. Both make fairly generic pop-rock and alternative rock respectively so how did they become so huge? Given that two of the best-selling groups of all time in our country are Sweden’s ABBA and Denmark’s Aqua, I momentarily wondered:

Do we just have a thing for Scandinavian pop?

The real answer though, I think, is two-fold. Both Michael Learns To Rock and Poets of the Fall found favour with listeners here thanks in part to the regular airplay they received on MTV and Vh1. Michael Learns To Rock, who broke through with the single ‘The Actor’ in 1991, deal in the kind of easy listening soft rock that was ubiquitous in the 1980s but suddenly became uncool soon after.

The 1980s, as I’ve said before , are the Indian western pop music aficionado’s favourite decade. Michael Learns To Rock filled a gap for fans of groups who found that their preferred style of music was being heard less and less in the advent of grunge and hip-hop. Similarly, Poets of the Fall, whose songs traverse both pop and metal, have the kind of hybrid sound that’s beloved of local college audiences but isn’t quite topping the charts.

The second and more important reason is that both acts capitalised on their followings by touring India at a relatively early stage in their careers, thereby building on that fan base and further increasing it. And they’ve returned with a regularity rivaled perhaps only by Bryan Adams.

Michael Learns To Rock first performed here, in Bengaluru and Chennai, in 1996, just five years after the release of their first hit, a considerably short span back in the 1990s when visits by international acts were few and far between. They came again in 2005, stopping in Bengaluru, Mumbai and Shillong; in 2010, to Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru; and in 2015, to Delhi, Guwahati, Dimapur, Kolkata and Goa. Their 2005 trek, incidentally, led to the release of a special ‘India Tour Edition’ of their The Essential Hits compilation.

The band’s drummer Kare Wanscher has his own theory as to why they’re so loved here and in South-East Asia. “I think that few bands have the same impact on Asian and Indian fans as we do, especially because of the way our music fits into the tradition of karaoke,” he told Delhi newspaper Mail Today in 2015. “Also, our lyrics are easy to understand, which in many Asian countries helps us get recognition since English is not their first language and they can understand what we are singing about. Another very important factor is the fact that our melodies are very catchy.”

Hashim D’Souza, the head of creative and content for Viacom 18’s English cluster of channels, agrees with Wanscher’s assessment. D’Souza believes we like acts that are “easy to sing along to” and that nostalgia has contributed greatly to Michael Learns To Rock’s longevity. “We live with legacy in India; a lot of the audience who used to watch MTV don’t listen to any new music now,” he said.

While most fans were introduced Poets of the Fall through music television channels, they really blew up, D’Souza said, after “they got popular in the college circuit”. The sextet’s first gig in India was at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur in 2007. They’ve been back with a greater frequency than Michael Learns To Rock, to Bengaluru in each of their subsequent sojourns in 2011, 2012, 2015 and 2017. As part of their 2015 tour, they also staged gigs in Delhi, Pune, Hyderabad and Kolkata.

Poets of the Fall clearly love India. It’s where they sell out venues and attendees queue up for selfies. As frontman and singer Marko Saaresto told Rolling Stone , “This is the only country in the world where we feel like great rockstars. We get mobbed at our gigs.”

In November, Poets of the Fall will headline the Meghalaya leg of the 2018 edition of the Bacardi NH7 Weekender music festival. It will mark their debut in the region, which Michael Learns To Rock played in 2010 and 2015. “Our biggest audience in the last four to five years has been in the North East where the international music consumption is the most heavy and it’s still untapped,” said D’Souza. The North East, as is widely known, loves both its soft rock and its metal.

Amit Gurbaxani is a Mumbai-based journalist who has been writing about music, specifically the country’s independent scene, for nearly two decades. He tweets  @TheGroovebox