There is something about music, and the familiarity that comes with it. The interludes, the lyrics, the music videos we watched on repeat on television. In fact, entire chapters of our younger lives can often be traced through the songs we couldn’t stop listening to.
First, there is the lullaby that put us to sleep as children; the one that still conjures the feeling of home, a familiar bed, and the comfort of drifting off to a deep slumber without worry. Then there are the songs we played on endless loop, the ones whose lyrics we butchered while singing; the songs our parents loved on the radio which we dismissed as boring until, later, added them to our playlists. There are songs that soundtrack our first crushes, echo the ache of a friendship ending, and open a window to another language or genres. Songs are repositories of memory.
Drawing from these familiar memories, a growing set of Tamil influencers on social media are revisiting music that celebrate the cultural touchstones of growing up for an entire generation. They are decoding lyrics, reviewing interludes, and breaking down the instrumentation that makes a track unforgettable. By dissecting songs layer by layer, they draw attention to the details that create their magic — whether it is the tabla, a flute, or a banjo — offering listeners a fresh way of experiencing songs they have heard countless times before.
For Inba (@inba_personal), the urge was simple: to show people a part of pop culture that he enjoys consuming. “It began as a way to let people know how I enjoy music. It was that basic. It is just like sharing with a friend how a certain track is good, how a portion of it is beautiful to listen to,” he says. Monish S (@imonishvlogs), meanwhile, chanced upon this genre of content creation with the hope that it would demonstrate his musical sensibilities and eventually create opportunities for him as a music composer and director — the career he has always aspired for. “Although that was my plan, the reach for my content has grown so much that it makes me want to continue doing this. It astonishes me that so many people are enjoying how I enjoy Tamil music,” he adds. For Sabarish (@sabarish.pov), the journey began with a desire: to introduce a wider audience to the works of Na Muthukumar, whose writing he admires.
Each of these creators has a distinct style of presenting their content. Monish usually appears seated at his keyboard in what looks like a home studio. He brings his conversational, everyday personality, often playfully inserting himself into the world of the song. In one video dissecting Malai mangum neram, he switches into a white shirt in sync with the beat, joking that he has adopted Shriya’s look in the song. He peels the layers of the track by lowering the vocal track to reveal the intricate instrumentation beneath, allowing listeners to hear the details that give the song its texture and emotional depth. He then dissects how the song moves from a slow, lingering rhythm into a sudden burst of pace, before easing back into the slow, seductive cadence.
Inba often appears on screen with a pair of wired earphones plugged in, almost always opening with a hook that muses on things that can be recreated before declaring that the song he is about to dissect is one that could never be made again. He then breaks down its beats, the way the lyrics settle into the rhythm, and the emotions the music evokes in him. While analysing Desingu raja, for instance, he speaks about how its infectious beats make him and his friends want to break into a dance.
Sabarish has a calmer, more measured presence. His videos focus primarily on lyrics, unpacking their meaning, examining the nuances of the writing, and making a case for why they deserve to be understood as much as they are heard.
The result is an online community that is being reshaped and moulded into being informed listeners of music. Anitha, a Chennai resident, who consumes such content on Instagram, shares, “I like discovering details of songs especially the ones which I love the most. Recently, I have been adding songs to my playlists just because these videos made me listen to them differently. Although I never really understood the technical aspects of music before, I think I’m now paying attention to it a lot because of these creators.”
Nakul, another resident, believes, “I think Tamil music fans have always been informed, but maybe we haven’t had the opportunity to collectively appreciate the magnanimity of artistes, singers, composers, tunes, interludes, and moments in songs, together as a community. Especially those songs made between 1990 and 2010.” He adds that for most Millennials and Gen Zs today, these content creators are offering a pathway to rediscover old songs with newer sensibilities, and are even being the reason behind discovering songs from an earlier decade that one might have missed listening to.
Monish recalls that he once opened the YouTube video of a Tamil song after he posted a video about it and found someone in the comment section mentioning that they came to listen to the song after watching his video. “That made me so happy. In fact, I love finding underrated music of Yuvan Shankar Raja and introducing it to people,” he says.
While most content creators grapple with holding the attention of audiences, all three creators acknowledge that music and lyric dissection content manages to keep viewers engaged for much longer. Even Instagram’s own guidelines caution creators against posting videos longer than three minutes, suggesting that such formats may not perform well for emerging pages like theirs. Yet, audiences appear to defy the expectations and algorithms of social media platforms.
Inba says, “People say only one-minute reels work, but all my reels which have crossed a million views are more than two-and-a-half minutes, some even longer; it’s the length that is proven to not work on Instagram.” Monish too shares how he let these rules govern the length of his videos initially. He confesses to keeping his videos around 58 seconds to a minute, but later tried a 2.30-minute one, which worked well. “Then I took the risk and posted longer videos, say three minutes or 3.30 minutes too because what matters is the number of shares. If the content is good, people share, and the video will work,” he believes.
What they also invest in is the making of the complete video package, a process they say they handle entirely on their own. From selecting the song and deciding what elements to discuss, to shaping the way it is presented, every detail is carefully considered. Their videos are often layered with Tamil pop culture references and memes, making the content feel familiar and relatable. The entire process can take anywhere from a couple of hours to several days, they say.
This trend also points to a newer understanding of how audiences connect with music. Relatability no longer has to come solely from trained experts or formal musicians. All three creators acknowledge that they have no formal education in music, but are instead self-taught enthusiasts who have developed their own ways of listening, appreciating, and understanding songs. Perhaps that is what makes their interpretations resonate: they are not speaking from a pedestal, but from the perspective of fellow listeners discovering the magic within music.
So, the next time you find yourself scrolling online, perhaps take a minute and rediscover a familiar song, or listen to one you have never heard before. You might just find your playlist growing a little richer.