Kendrick Lamar made history when he won the Pulitzer prize for music. Lamar is one of the most popular hip-hop artists today. Being a die hard classic rock fan, it pains me to admit this but rock is passé. Hip-hop and R&B are the most popular musical genres in the US today. This is the first time that the Pulitzer is awarded to a hip-hop album. Lamar’s album Damn was No 1 on the charts, thereby disproving the myth that popular work cannot be good enough to receive a prestigious critics award. Critics have praised Lamar’s lyrics for fact-gathering and having many layers of meanings and contexts. Good to see Pulitzer finally giving recognition to an art form that was long overdue.
These days, whenever I read the phrase “in sharp contrast”, it has invariably to do with the comparison of India with other countries, mostly China. Here, I am using the phrase for Hindi music which, in sharp contrast to hip-hop, is in a dismal state. I fear that the remarks about Hindi music would apply to most regional language music scenes as well.
Barring few exceptions, Hindi music has always been synonymous with Bollywood music. This is where the music industry gets almost all of its revenue. In the past, songs were an integral part of the film so we had lyricists, music composers, singers and producer-directors all working collectively to make the songs the best they could be. Many stories exist about Raj Kapoor or Dev Anand being adamant about tiniest of the song details. I don’t know what the situation is at present, but the results are mostly unbearble. I first realized this when it dawned upon me that my favourite music albums in last ten years can be counted on fingers of one hand – for instance Rockstar, Dangal, Gangs of Wasseypur or Luck By Chance.
So I dug deeper. Another revelation happened when I was watching a recent movie. One Arijit song came on and half-way through the song, I could not even remember what song I was listening to. This is my problem when I listen to an hour long Arijit Singh compilation. It feels like one continuous song. Tum Hi Ho from Aashiqui 2 is a great song but I find it hard to listen to 30 songs done in the same style. Arijit has a great voice but unfortunately the composers are unable to extract its full potential. Look how different he sounds when he sings for Rahman. After Ashiqui 2 became hit, everyone started composing ballads – with little or no beats and very similar tunes.
And if we look for beats and a catchy tunes, we encounter a horrible nightmare that is the remake of old songs. The recent trend in Bollywood is that they have stopped composing a catchy item song. They just select an old hit song and “remake” it. The reasoning that is given for this trend is laughable – they want to introduce the young generation to these old “forgotten” songs, as if these old songs have been lost in time and are now beyond reach. Isn’t it ironical that even three or four composers working on one movie cannot produce one original item number? The real reason behind these remixes is quite simple : laziness and creative bankruptcy.
The fact that old Bollywood songs, rich in content and melody, inspire the remixes is hardly surprising. Remember the 1981 song Tere Mere Beech Mein composed by Laxmikant Pyarelal, from the movie Ek Duje Ke Liye? Britney Spears took inspiration from it and produced her greatest hit – Toxic.
No art form is bad in itself. Neither is remaking or remixing songs. This art form has its roots in the dance hall culture in Jamaica in the early 70s. It was picked up by DJs in Discotheques where the concept of “scratching the disc” really took roots. This concept was crucial in the birth of hip-hop. Then the hip-hop group RUN-DMC remade the song Walk This Way – a classic hard rock song by Aerosmith. This was unprecedented – fusion of rock and hip-hop! And instead of just adding beats, RUN-DMC collaborated with Aerosmith to produce a unique version of the song.
And here’s the most crucial part. After making this song that broke records, RUN-DMC could have remade the old hits of everyone from Eric Clapton to Jimmy Hendrix. But they did not. They made this ONE remix song and then they went back to producing original, high-quality music.
What we have today in Hindi music are mainly three types of songs – the no-beats-only-guitar songs that sound the same, the remakes and the dance numbers with Punjabi rap thrown in. Even here good artists make nice songs. For instance, Yo Yo Honey Singh in Chennai Express but these are few and far between. Few composers today spend the time and energy to create something original.
Another thing I miss in today’s Hindi music is songs that stretch the singer’s limits. I am a big fan of songs that are in high-pitch, hence my devotion to Kishore Kumar. (When did he breathe while singing?) At present, there are singers like Sukhwinder Singh and Sonu Nigam who can go really high pitch. The song Kambakth Ishq from 2001, where Sukhwinder, Ashaji and Sonu Nigam deliver an amazing performance. The problem is, how many songs are being composed today that can exploit the full range of Sukhwinder or Sonu Nigam’s voices?
So I cross state borders and listen to the maestro’s Tamil song Aila Aila where he uses the soprano quality of Natalia D’Cruz’s voice to its full extent. I am breathless at the end of it. Goosebumps.
Who would think of combining sonata and opera with Indian music?
Answer : Of course A R, who else? Remember when he used polyphony in the Rangeela song Mangata Hai Kya? Near the end of the song, Shewta Shetty and A R himself launch into two parallel, independent yet intertwining melodies. Or polyphony, a form that used by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 – 1750) extensively in the eighteenth century in western classical music, except A R used it for Indian classical music.
I would be a very happy man if I die while listening to A R.
Almost everyone agrees that the eighties were a low point for Bollywood music, until Anand-Milind and Jatin-Lalit came along. And yet, there was a silver lining during this low period. The Ghazal format became immensely popular after Ghulam Ali’s song Chupke Chupke Raat Din in the 1983 movie Nikaah became a hit. Pakistani artists like Ghulam Ali, Mehdi Hasan along with their Indian counterparts like Jagjit Singh and Talat Aziz were hugely successful as independent artists. Their live concerts always opened to packed houses. This era also saw some beautiful Urdu poetry – from Ghalib and Faiz to Hasarat Mohani and Farhat Shahzad. It was the best of times. This is one of the few instances where Hindi music had a strong existence outside of the film industry.
The eighties also saw Pakistani pop singers Nazia Hasan and her brother Zoheb Hasan with Indian producer Biddu produce some of the greatest hits of the times. A cursory look at the comments on their Youtube videos shows their enduring popularity even today. Later on, the nineties saw Lucky Ali, Alisha Chinai, Silk Route, Colonial Cousins, Shaan, Shubha Mudgal, Adnan Sami among others making memorable music.
Indian classical music is one area that has remained fiercely independent and yet successful. One cannot imagine a producer telling stalwarts like Pt. Bhimsen Joshi or Kishori Amonkar which Raag to sing so that it will sell more records. It is this creative independence that has produced legends like Pt. Ravi Shankar and Ustad Zakir Hussain.
Pt. Hridaynath Mangeshkar revolutionised Marathi Music starting in the 1960s. His music was eclectic, unusual and ahead of its time. He worked with singers like Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosale, Hemant Kumar, Suresh Wadkar, choosing poets well known for their complexity and deep meanings : Saint Dnyaneshwar, Meera, Ghalib, Grace (Manik Godghate). He received a lot of criticism at the time from people who did not have the capacity to recognize his genius. After 50 years, his songs are an integral part of the Marathi consciousness.
For some reason, this did not carry over in other areas of Indian music. An Indian singer or a composer today is caught between a rock and a hard place. She cannot survive successfully as an independent artist and she has to make many artistic compromises in movies to meet the demands of the market. It is ironical that the musical shows for discovering new talents are getting more and more popular but after these singers are discovered, they have little choice except trying their luck in movies as singers.
I find it very interesting that the two quintessentially American musical art forms, jazz and hip-hop, both arose as a need to express in response to oppression. We have had plenty of oppression in India as well but we never ventured out of our comfort zones to invent new musical forms. The lack of independence of musicians ensures that contemporary music never reaches a level where it can become an expression of something higher, addressing social, political or philosophical issues.
This is the reason why despite great acting and soundtrack, Imtiaz Ali’s Rockstar never feels real. An independent Indian rock singer having millions and millions of fans? I believe more in that other story. You know, the one about a certain school of witchcraft and wizardry.
