If you’re a content creator, you would make a video on how this song ‘Kasoor’ from Chennai singer-songwriter Kamlesh Purohit ‘actually’ existed in 2005 but really released recently this year. It’s probably fair to say that the song itself is in the vein of much that has come before it; a simple pop ballad that has some sort of emotional content (the heartbreak kind) and includes some very, very glossy production. But while that is probably his intention, the real reason that this track hits is very simply what it hearkens back to. The act of listening to this tune actually takes you back to a strange era of Bollywood’s influence and its music, and that is truly interesting.

This story of heartbreak and recounting the experience is not to be ignored; it will resonate with you if you’re in the right mood for it. But the song has this unmistakable quality of bringing back memories, and not of the era you might think. This song, from its very upfront, produced drums to its one layer of distorted guitar and its infinite layers of modulated ‘stuff’ in a very crowded mix (yes, of course there is a solo and a big ol’ chorus), is emblematic of an interesting time in popular music of the Hindi film variety. This isn’t in a movie, but if it was, there would be rain in its dance scene (below a random flyover) and pirated CDs of it that you would put in your terrible DVD player and hope the wire connecting it to your TV wasn’t loose. This is absolutely the sound of the mid-2000s, a time where your remote was used more than your phone. Where everything playing on the radio was the same song but in 20 different movies and you’d have to go to Limewire on a dial-up connection to find the latest stuff. If this language makes no sense to you, yes, ‘Kasoor’ is just a pop song you might like despite it being on the glitzier side. But if you do understand what the last paragraph means, get ready for a wave of game cartridges, weird movies you still loved and the guilty pleasures you forgot about to come flooding through your brain.