Where have our singers gone (Part 1)

Shweta says new year party at HITEX is drool-worthy. I don't know as I have never been to any new year party ever. But if having Jasbeer Jassi as the lead entertainer is anyone's idea of having a party, leave alone 'drool-worthy', I am not that 'anyone'!

But seeing that once 'oooh-so-familiar' and now 'umm-somewhat-familiar' face of Jassi on the poster I wondered, where have these people gone? All those people who released albums in all possible genres most notably Punjabi pop and ruled the Indian music charts with alarming regularity, have they been relegated to only etc Punjabi?

Back then every one seemed to be a potential pop star. The success of Daler Mehndi lead to attack of clones and soon many sardars with opulent sherwanis and pagdis were crooning Balle Balle! Secular nature of the country struck back and Punjabi pop was not limited to only Sardar jis and people like Shankar Sahni, Jasbir Jassi, Sukhbir and Hans Raj Hans were the new kings of the block. Womenfolk were not to be left behind and after Alisha, Anaida, Anamika, Raageshwari, Rajeshwari and so many made a mark. The novelty factor of Indian Pop was all but over!

Then the remixes happened. Coupled with raunchy videos the remixes dealt a blow to originals. DJs were the new talk of town and instead of 'performers' (who sang as well as were presentable on the stage) the 'item girls' took the center stage. The Rakhi Sawants and Shefali Zariwalas were the hot cakes!

This was the phase when Bollywood was changing and so were the music companies. The corporatization was taking place and the music rights were being sold along with other rights in the bulk deals. I don't know if this was the reason that music companies decided that the money to be made was in the film music. Gradually there were hardly any remixed albums. The remixes became part of the film album only.

People like Shaan, Mohit Chauhan, Anushka, Daler Menhdi, Neeraj Sridhar and many others who had started as pop artists, now were mainstream Bollywood singers.

This was a good phase for Hindi film music.

(Concluded in next part)

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How was 'Phir Mile Sur' made? Inside story!

Are you wondering why did Zoom decide to recreate 'Phir Mile Sur'? Here is the top secret unearthed by our under cover agents (borrowed from UTV Bindass's Emotional Atyachar).

Zoom honchos had thought of making a music video featuring Bollywood stars but then someone suggested why not piggyback on something already popular and remembered! And they decided to do 'Phir Miley Sur'.

Here is how the "creative team" acted on the brief given by producers:

1) We need to have the 3 Khans doing what they are best known for. So Salman has to be shirtless (and keep his mouth shut!), Aamir has to be with kids (audience needs to be reminded that he is the conscientious Khan!) and SRK doing his trademark open-arms thing. And obviously all need to be given equal footage.

2) We need to show the young 'achievers'. To this someone said most of them may not be recognized by public. Good Point, so we need to show their more famous dad with them. Here come Ustad Amzad Ali Khan with sons Amaan and Ayaan, KJ Yesudas with Vijay, Pt. Shivkumar Sharma with Rahul. Pt. Ravi Shankar is unwell so Anoushka will have to do alone.

3) Bollywood's first family. No it will look like a family album. OK, we will do it in more discreet manner. Let's drop Big Ma. (She's a politician anyway!) Big B can sing, so let's keep him alone. And the beta-bahu can be shot together. (Someone said ya, may be we can sneak in a bar of Lux also somewhere!)

4) Musicians. Rahman HAS to be there but since we don't have anything like storyboard so we don't know what to do with him. Shankar-Ehsan-Loy can do a "Rock On" but who will tell them their piece which sounds like a crescendo is actually not in the end! Sivamani can be trusted to do something crazy. God bless the person who suggested inclusion of Ustad Rashid Khan. Shreya Ghoshal and Shan can be clubbed with east India. Sonu Nigam can be used as playback for stars.

5) Bollywood. But we have to keep whole country in mind, no? Uhh ok, Vikram and Surya from Tamil, Mahesh Babu from Telugu, Mammooty from Malyalam. Happy? Rituparna Sen Gupta and Sonali/Atul Kulkarni will go well because they can be shown as Bengali and Marathi (respectively) as well! (The guy who suggested this got a bonus.). Now we can fill in as many Bollywood guys as we want. (This thought made them so happy, they all shared a McAloo Tikki)

6) Budget. We have already spent 99.875% of our total budget on stars so get some sportsmen to whom we don't have to pay conveyance charges and yet people recognize them. Enter Gopichand-Saina, Vijayendra, Sunil, Abhinav and Baichung. Technicians? Unh who needs them. We can edit and put it all together ourselves on a Mac. So what if lips are not in sync with lyrics or fingers not in sync with the instrument. Oh, it's still not 16 minutes? Let's put in some stock shots of armed forces.

And then as they say rest was history. (PMS got such a bad response, that it was relegated to history books in first week itself!)

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A cheapskate called T-Series.

I was admiring the innovative cover of the 'Delhi 6' CD. A shiny mirror like surface which 'reflects' the theme of the movie 'A Journey Within'. Very cool, I said.

And then I opened it. No lyrics? Not possible. Open all the folds properly. No more folds? How can this be possible?

If you thought this was ridiculous, read further.

Now that we have settled this issue of missing lyrics, read further. When I ripped the CD of Slumdog Millionaire, the following appeared in my music library. Apart from wrong information about one of the tracks (See track# 9 in below image. It mentions 'Aaj Ki Raat' from 'Don' and also lists the singers of that song!) , the information about other tracks appears in an order, which is completely different from what is listed on the cover. So though the listed track is 'Ringa Ringa', the associated information mentions 'O... Saya' and so on.


This for a Golden Globe winner and Oscar nominated album.

Shame on India's supposedly largest music company!

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Summer Sounds

After nearly an year long hiatus I thought of writing about my favorite albums and songs this summer and there are quite a few things to talk about!

Two albums are tied for the Top Position in my list: 'Aamir' and 'Jane Tu Ya Jane Na'.

'Aamir' was the debut film for its producers (UTV Spotboy Films), director (Raj Kumar Gupta), hero (Rajiv Khandelwal) and its music director (Amit Trivedi) and one must applaud Trivedi for his fantastic debut. The album spans every genre in today's popular music and every song is a treat. Even 'theme music' makes a comeback after long time and is pretty good. Lyrics are good however a few grammatical mistakes like 'raat ka bhor' sound awkward!

Album features 'Dilruba' from 'Kailasa' and 'Bandya' from 'Khuda Ke Liye' and I need not say that these tracks enhance the value of this album even more!

If the first album was from a debutante, the other belongs to a maestro! 'JTYJN' as it is called in SMS lingo, is such a different offering from A R Rahman, that it doesn't even seem to be a Rahman creation. You need not listen to the songs repeatedly to be hooked to them, it happens in very first hearing itself! Featuring 10 unheard voices the songs sound mint fresh and range across emotions. Director Abbas Tyrewala has penned the songs and though his writing is a bit cliched, I didn't mind really.

Disappointments:
Love Story 2050 - What was Anu Malik thinking when he was doing music for this film. Ofcourse songs should look good onscreen, but that doesn't mean that they should sound bad otherwise! Only a couple of songs are appealing for their melody, rest seem to have been composed to just provide Harman Baweja and Priyanka Chopra ample chances to dance.

Mission Istanbul - No, don't blame me of being biased against Anu Malik. It's not my fault that his second big album features here. It's just because these two were big budget films and one expected to have good music for them. Forget tunes, Malik has nothing innvative even in arrangement. It's no coincidence that 'Apun Ke Sath' reminds you of 'Ganpat' ('Shootout at Lokhandwala'). Again only one of the tracks ('Jo Gumshuda') is worth listening.

So So:
Thoda Pyar Thoda Magic - Shankar Mahadevan is a good singer, and this album shows you when too much of a good thing can be a little...not so good! Mahadevan is the single male voice in this album and that's not very good news. The music seems to lack novelty and is partly in 'Jhoom Barabar Jhoom' mode (ohh just remembering that album gives me shivers. May be I should start calling it 'You Know What'). 'Lazy Lamhe' may rise in charts due to sultry, sexy avatar of Amisha Patel. Prasoon Joshi's lyrics are perhaps best among everything I talked here about. But the album is at best an average offering.


This is what I think about bollywood music, would love to know what you think.

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