These days, I seem to have such negative feelings for contemporary Indian music. There’s nothing redeeming about them – everything is so freakin synthetic and …well, the exact term escapes me…..everything’s routine. That’s it. Routine.
What got me thinking like my grandparents is this freakin video I saw. ( Me and TV are generally two divorced entities. Just happened to be around in this case ) Sunidhi Chauhan. Bhoot Hoon Main. Lots of half-naked guys dancing around Sunidhi as she sings Bhoot Hoon Main over and over again. Nothing improper about half-naked guys, but what’s the freakin point here? Why have a female + male dancers when you are supposed to be talking ghosts? What’s the point in having a drum-beat that doesn’t sound like a freakin drum at all, but a metal pole being struck, with a constant chikichikichik in the background. Are ideas for music videos dead? The standard storyboard for 60% of whatever’s made as videos seems to be – guy sees girl on road. Guy falls for girl. Something happens. Guy gets girl. Wheee! How freakin original!
Three kinds of Indian music composers as of now. Nadeem-Shravan type jhankar beats and a tune that sounds like a hundred other songs you have heard and you can actually predict the way the song will sound a minute later. These are like the MD has given the basic tune to the singer, and has told him “Ok, so this is where you start, and when you start, keep going.” He then turns towards the orchestra and says, “Play”. Who cares WHAT the musicians play? And there it is, “emotional soul-stirring” music. Oh, did I forget to mention that you can also call it “timeless melodious” music? Really, that’s what the posters say.
Then there are the Pro-tools MDs. These are the guys who have just bought a new Korg, or are being exposed to “latest technologies in mujik”.( Optionally, they have their own sound designer.) Forget the tune. Anything will do. You just gotta spice it up, and yes, you need a catchy chorus. Add a bass-line that’s a half-forgotten sample from Dr Alban. Lots of sample beats that keep changing every thirty seconds, so that the listener doesn’t realise it’s a “programmed loop” and not a live drummer playing. (Yeah, right, like a live drum EVER sounds like that! ) Exotic instruments galore. A voice modulator plugin does wonders for the singing part too. Layers, lots of layers. Sonic Assault unlimited. Served piping hot.
The innovators. Who think they are innovating, but well, they keep sounding like the last song/album they composed. I guess that’s a problem with every other artiste/band in the world. And what a rut it is! If they stay in the same mould for too long a time, they are accused of repetition, and if they try to veer away from the routes already taken, there is a hue and cry about “where IS the guy? What the heck is he trying to pull?”
The newbies – Salim-Suleiman (whoever!), Sandeep Chowta, Himesh “same-beats-ad-infinitum”Reshammiya, Lalit Sen and old-timers like Anu “sound designer=ranjit barot” Malik, they are all part of the Pro-Tools gang. heaven knows what the heck they are up to. With a plethora of beats, they are trying hard to say that what they dish out is “music” but for goshsakes!!! How many four-five note tunes with mindless beats can we take? A friendly note of warning – our friendly neighbourhood Nadeem-Shravan will be around forever. Choke on it, but they and their half-boiled concoctions will keep pounding away at our ears and the fragile ecosystem around us. They don’t care what they direct (hey, they are music directors, not composers!!! ), it will sound good to them, it sounds different from whatever they have directed so far. My, how nice short-term memory loss is!! And bon tonerre, they are unleashing their sons to carry on their timeless legacy. I shudder.
It hurts, you know, to see how the mighty have fallen. And how neophytes do not soar. I refer, of course, to ARR. And the trio of Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy. Even Ismail Durbar. Or, if I want to stretch the line a bit – MM Kreem, Vishal Bharadwaj and Vishal-Shekhar. Yeah, I know. They put out good music. Some of their stuff is good at times. That’s it, just good. Where’s the freakin’ consistency, I ask? I don’t want a peppy-sounding song, followed by two unhearable ones, and then one that’s good to dance to – standard cliched album sequence. Where’s the meat, goddamnit? Where’s an album that can move me the way Dil Se did? Where is a song like Man Mohini that blows away the cliche called ethnicity? Where do I get an album like Kandisa, that makes my jaw drop when I hear it the first time, and stays put in my head for the rest of my life? (OK, so the rest of my life is not technically correct, but I am pretty much sure about this. )
I am pretty sure ARR, SEL, Durbar and the rest of their ilk can come up with something that will rock my socks off. But who wants them to?????? Our friggin directors, the whole bunch of them are still stuck with love-triangles and cheap Matrix-ripoffs. How many tunes can someone come up about LOVE, for goshsakes? Twenty? Thirty? Eight hundred? Forty thousand?
Why doesn’t anything happen? Why doesn’t something like Roja, or Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, or even Dil Chahta Hai happen again? Why am I not enthu enough to keep bugging the Music Shop guy whether this CD has come or not, why hasn’t it come, WHEN is it coming? I would give anything to listen to a HIndi song that has an authentic drum, that doesn’t sound like the plumbing system in an alien spacecraft. I want a musical revolution that blows away the entire concept of hero-heroine-twenty-dancers-in-the-background videos. Please, please, please! Is that too much to ask for?
Maybe then I could stop sounding like my grandparents.
For the record, Parasuram is in stock now. But I am just not interested enough to go buy it. Me not buying an ARR album….even when I have the money. What a laugh!