Inspired by the growing influence of Western pop music, many young Nepalese at the end of the 1980s picked up Western instruments themselves. Those who had the means, mostly students from upper and middle class families, began to follow the lead of the Hillocks, a Pop Nepali songs band of the early 1980s. They formed their own Pop Nepali song bands and covered their favorite Pop Nepali songs. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a generation of Pop Nepali songs musicians from high school and college students organized themselves into Western cover bands, and performed in dynamic concerts of Western hits in English. Popular groups included Wrathchild, Crisscross, Chimpanzees, the Elegance, Prism (which originated in Darjeeling), and Next. The concert scene included not only auditoriums in schools but also large public spaces, such as Kathmandu Durbar Square, in a party to celebrate the Nepal Sambat, or New Year’s Eve on the Newar calendar. Out of this spirit of youth-centered excitement later emerged a new sound that would come to be known as Pop Nepali songs. Some of the Pop Nepali song bands were beginning to compose and perform original Pop Nepali songs, most in Nepali. A few of these Pop Nepali song bands were beginning to make recordings, although affordable recording technology and professional sound studios did not become abundant in Kathmandu until the early 1990s. Performing Western covers was a kind of musical training for many Nepali musicians who would later form some of Nepal’s leading Pop Nepali song bands, including Rock Yogis, Nepathya, and Mongolian Hearts.
Initially popular sounds included heavy metal (especially that of Iron Maiden, Anthrax, Aerosmith, and Metallica), Pink Floyd, and the Beatles. Western styles that were later prominently incorporated into Pop Nepali song bands included disco, reggae, rap, grunge, and alternative rock. Weaker influences from punk and from blues, jazz, and Spanish guitar could also be heard. Not incorporated into Pop Nepali songs were the sounds of gospel, soul, country and western, country rock, beach music, Motown, psychedelic rock, and vocal pop groups (such as New Kids on the Block and Boys II Men), although all these sounds could all be heard on MTV and Nepali FM radio. In the exciting period of the mid to late 1980s, some young Nepali musicians were doing more than just covering Western, English-language music. Some were also listening to aadhunik geet and lok geet, and to older Pop Nepali song singers and musicians like Harish Mathema, Sunil Upreti, Om Bikram Bista, the latter of which was the first prominent Pop Nepali song singer to start to use Western popular instruments into his recordings (Zeepee). They began to contemplate ways to incorporate Western musical influences into Pop Nepali song music.
The primary fan base of Pop Nepali songs were middle- and upper-class, educated, urban young people, mostly in high school or college. The influence of Pop Nepali songs also reached into the lower classes with some success, particularly in the cities. Accordingly many listened to Pop Nepali songs up to their early thirties. Pop Nepali song is the urban music. It was most popular in Nepal’s cities. Kathmandu was the largest market, but the Pop Nepali song music was also popular in the smaller cities of Pokhara, Dharan, Narayanghat, Butawal, and Biratnagar. Pop Nepali felt more close to their immediate cultural concerns, because it was primarily in their national language, Nepali, and because they could hear in it distinctive rhythms, melodies, and timbres of Nepali music. Although Pop Nepali songs incorporated some musical influences from folk music, in most respects it participated in a growing disjuncture between folk and urban cultures in Nepal.
