The rise of India’s first all-GenZ girl band after 22 years 

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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India is witnessing the rise of, not just an all-girl Independent band after 22 years, but also first of its kind all-GenZ girl band to ever come out of the country, as per the prolific music producer Mickey McCleary. Yes, W.I.S.H is officially making some noise in the music circuit with its extremely eclectic and new-age vibe, powered by its four founders — Ri, Zo, Sim and Suchi! 

Working With the Legend, Mickey McCleary

Coming from varied backgrounds, WISH has been brought together as a project ideated, curated and mentored by the legend Mickey (Michael) McCleary, the New Zealand songwriter, composer, performer, producer and director who is based out of Mumbai since 2007. Mickey has collaborated and worked with the likes of Lucky Ali and AR Rahman through his career and recently put the four young artists in their early twenties together, to form WISH. 

“We were initially terrified to be working with Mickey, but he turned out to be a breeze to work with! He really builds you as an artist — from concept to video, he is involved with everything we do. He has a great impact on us in terms of how to carry ourselves, improve our craft and become better musicians,” say the team WISH. 

The formation of WISH also reminds me of the rise of K-Pop from South Korea. The band members bring on board starkly different personalities and backgrounds — Zoe hailing from Chennai, Sim and Ri are sisters coming from a musical family of Mumbai and Suchi who grew up wanting to be a dancer and switched to WISH from a desk job in a production house. 

Social Media Algorithms and Trends 

In an industry which is now run on algorithms and Instagram Reel trends, WISH finds it fun and interesting to create music and set the trends for the rest of the generation to follow. Being GenZs themselves, obviously helps them to understand the vibe of the generation and to create content and music which resonates with youngsters of their age group.

However, their current focus is on creating good quality music and pushing out high powered videos and staying detached with numbers and algorithms as much as possible in the beginning, not letting their art become math. This obviously comes through in the fact that they have already released two songs along with videos in a short span of time and have a lot of content lined up in their kitty.

Meaning Through Music

But when it comes to resonating with the younger audience, it also needs a certain level of social messaging built into music as GenZ as a generation are extremely vocal about issues that matter to them. I was reminded of the impactful song “Kashmir” created by The Yellow Diary which beautifully highlights the socio-political situation of the region. WISH also plans to follow suit and become a voice of the next generation — with women empowerment as one of the narratives they feel deeply connected to. Thus, a lot of their music is and will be revolving around “girlhood”, as they put it. 

What Makes Bands Stick together? 

It is imperative to also understand what will make an independent band stick together — considering that we have seen so many such outfits fall apart either due to lack of opportunities or overpowering personal ambitions. But the band members feel that they stick together purely for the love of music and their ambition to create something great. India has seen a lot of independent bands come together in the late 90s and early 2000s, but very few of them aged well and saw the success equivalent to their Western counterparts. 

WISH maintains their bond by spending all their time together, learning and picking up each other’s vibe. They feel their “sisterhood” is what keeps them attached and being able to live their dream through this project is what keeps driving them. 

Opportunities for Budding Artists

At a time of fast evolving algorithms and the trend of new age stars being created on social media, WISH feels that there is a huge opportunity for kids of the next generation to follow their passion and carve out a name for themselves. With increasing brand collaborations, live singing opportunities and increased requirement of music stemmed through OTT content, social media, independent movies — there is ample space in the industry to earn a living from music, which was not the case two decades back. 

This is the opportunity that WISH latched on to and created a project that is set to become the next big thing. As per them, it is a period of 22 years after which India is seeing an all-girls Independent band — it is time for us to wait and watch the trajectory that this young band takes from here.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow