There’s an inexplicable excitement around the band Vega. It’s beloved, almost unanimously, and has almost reached a cult status amongst Turkish rock bands.
Their debut release, the one popular song that was on repeat on every music channel, was slightly inappropriate due to its sexist and misogynistic undertones, which I assume was kinda necessary for a women-led band to be signed around then.
However, the album featured multiple great songs. Their sound was raw and unpolished, but some songs were extremely memorable…
…even if they themselves didn’t remember it. I’ve seen some of these songs requested in intimate concerts, and the band not remembering (or pretending not to) that they even had such songs.
A few years later came their second, and most acclaimed album, Tatlı Sert. First single was a ballad for longing, though Deniz always mentioned in interviews (one of them to me!) that this song had political undertones to it, and was written with “a better future in mind”.
The album featured the same sound from the previous album, it was clearly Vega—but it was more polished now.
Featuring numerous amazing tracks, the band somehow got tangled in copyright issues with their label, and a few years later released Tatlı Sert 2, a re-release of the same album, with added remix bonuses.
One of those remixes was hilariously brilliant Ottoman-style rethinking of a break-up song.
After mere three years that seemed like an eternity came their third albumm in my freshman year at university. I remember making a lot of friends the day the album was released.
The band had lost its founding member by then, and now consisted of only the husband-and-wife duo. New players brought in new sounds within their instruments, so the drums and basslines changed a lot as well.
That was still favorable to the deafening silence that followed for the next 12 years.
Final album came when I was under immense pressure, from both my upcoming move to Canada, and my fathers ongoing cancer treatment. The album is associated with my walks in the neighbourhood around the hospital, trying to find some food he’d enjoy, or finding a coffee shop to distract myself.
That might be why it sounds so much more melancholic to me. The energy subdued. The old Vega sound very subtle, barely poking out of bland riffs and rhythms. There, but easy to miss, especially if one’s not familiar with the older stuff.
Bands change and evolve. Their listeners also change in time. Nothing stays the same. I’m just glad that this album happened, this band continues to produce, and I got to grow up listening to them. Can’t wait to hear what’s next.