Music

Music talent hunts are a farce: Vinay

ArtKerala — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 23:43:30 -0500

Bollywood music director Vinay Tiwari has come down heavily on TV music talent hunts, saying the judges on these shows are just puppets and more often than not the winners can't sing.

"Now the personality of the singer has also become a criterion for selection. But these winners are not the kind of singers that music directors want. They cannot sing in the studio for even five minutes," Vinay said.

"I am sad that in this circus all the emphasis is on looks and the essence of hunting for talent is totally lost," he added.

"The judges are just puppets. Does anyone have decision-making power? The jury members are there because they are heavily paid to appear on the show. The final decision entirely depends on audience votes."

Along with music partner Nikhil, he composed for Anubhav Sinha's "Tum Bin". His solo work in "Stranger" starring Jimmy Shergil, Kay Kay, Sonali Kulkarni and Nandana Sen earned rave reviews at the just concluded 9th Osian's film fest here.

The director had once been on the "Sa Re Ga Ma Pa" reality show as a celebrity judge. But he feels that music talent hunts have now turned into marketing tools for TV channels and telecom service providers to squeeze money out of the public.

"Through text messages, they earn heavy revenue. For instance, for a small question or vote they receive at least 7 to 8 million messages and each SMS costs Rs.10. So you can imagine the kind of money they make through audience votes."

Vinay believes that to boost TRP ratings channels bank on public emotions and fabricate controversies.

"To increase TRPs, these shows are made unnecessarily melodramatic with parents and competitors shown crying on screen.

"It is unfortunate to see that many big music directors are part of this farce. They are shown fighting. A music director must be known for his creativity not for how much he can abuse on stage," he said.

"In this fanfare the main aim of the shows - to unearth latent talent - gets lost somewhere," added Vinay.

Vinay, who has now split with Nikhil, is currently working on films like "Thodi Life Thoda Magic" and "Tulsi".

Putting an end to speculation about the split, he said: "Yes! After working together for 18 years, Nikhil thought that he could work independently as he wanted to find his own identity. But we are still friends.

"I feel free now because when you are composing with a partner, sometimes you cannot use a particular instrument or technique as the other one doesn't like it. Then you feel helpless."

Indian pop

webmaster — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 00:23:05 -0500

Indian pop music, often known as Indi-pop or Hindi pop, is a term that refers to pop music of India. It is based on various Indian folk or classical music, influenced by modern beats from different parts of the world. Indian pop was relatively non-existent until the late 1970s to early 1980s. The major push to bring South Asian music into a "pop" motif was by Indian singer, Alisha Chinoy (touted in ethnomusiclogy circles as the "Queen of Indi-pop").Much if not most of Indian Pop music comes from the Indian Film Industry, and coincides with the filmi genre.

Several Indians have gained popularity in mainstream popular Western music, especially rock, however Indian Pop as a genre remains relatively unknown in the West. Artists of Indian descent include Freddie Mercury of British band Queen, born in Zanzibar, Tanzania, who started his first band in an Indian boarding school in Panchgani. During the '90s in the UK, the Asian Underground or Asian Massive scene gave rise to numerous Indo-Brit musicians and producers such as Talvin Singh, who in turn influenced mainstream pop music. Indie Indo-British band Cornershop also fuses Indian and Western music.

In the US, popular rock musicians of Indian descent include Kim Thayil of Soundgarden, Tony Kanal of the group No Doubt, and guitarist Anand Bhatt. Grammy-winning jazz singer Norah Jones is half-Indian, her father being sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar, who himself was a famous artist in the West.

In Canada, Indo-Canadian musicians include Dave 'Brownsound' Baksh, a former Sum 41 guitarist who is now forming his own band, Brown Brigade, percussionist Safwan Javed of the pop-rock trio Wide Mouth Mason, bassist, vocalist, and producer Chin Injeti, formerly of the trio Bass is Base, Ian D'Sa of Billy Talent and Ashwin Sood, drummer and husband of Canadian singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan.

In the Scandinavian extreme music scene, Indian musicians include Yusaf Parvez of the Norwegian black metal bands Dimmu Borgir/DHG/Ved Buens Ende/Code.

It started in the 90s and that time there were very few singers who were popular as non-film singers viz. Usha Utthup, Sharon Prabhakar and Peenaz Masani. Then as the industry expanded, came Baba Sehgal, Alisha Chinai, Shantanu Mukherjee aka Shaan, Sagarika, Colonial Cousins (Hariharan and Leslie Lewis), Lucky Ali, Sonu Nigam etc.

Some of the popular Indipop artists include Sonu Nigam, Daler Mehndi, Rageshwari, Bombay Vikings, Asha Bhosle, Shaan, Sunidhi Chauhan, Bombay Rockers, Anu Malik, Jazzy B, Malkit Singh, Hans Raj Hans, Baba Sehgal and more recently Raghav, Jay Sean, Juggy D, Rishi Rich, and Bally Sagoo, Punjabi MC, Bhangra Knights, Mehnaz and Sanober.

Many Punjabi Indian film and pop songs are finding their way into mainstream American music, like in the case of Britney Spears with Rishi Rich, Jay-Z with Panjabi MC, Timbaland, Missy Elliott, and Truth Hurts, with her song "Addictive" (for which they were sued for copyright infringement of a Lata Mangeshkar song). The beginning of mainstream Indian music finding its way into America began with the movie Moulin Rouge!. In the movie, the main number, "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend (Hindi)", featured Alka Yagnik's song "Chamma Chamma" from the Indian movie "China-Gate".

In the UK, the growth of South Asian musical subcultures began to influence mainstream pop by surfacing in songs and remixes by the likes of Siouxsie and the Banshees, Erasure, Bananarama, and Samantha Fox.

Recently Indian pop has taken an interesting turn, with the 'remixing' of oldie songs from past Indian Film songs and adding new beats to them. Most of the Indian music, whether it be Filmi, Classical, Pop or Folk, still incorporates the eternal beats of India, making it one of few pop music cultures that keep traditional beats and sounds even with the modernization of music.

Hate You - A Great Hit song from Happy Malayalam

webmaster — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 00:17:21 -0500

Chemmeen - kadalinakkare

webmaster — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 23:52:37 -0500

Singer C K Revamma passes away

ArtKerala — Sun, 13 May 2007 15:08:23 -0500

Musician and playback singer of yesteryears, C K Revamma, died at her residence here, family sources said.

She was 75 and was keeping indifferent health for some time.

Revemma had lent her voice for the songs in about 20 Malayalam films in 1950s, including musical hits like Sasidharan and Jeevithanauka.

Revamma later concentrated on teaching and research in music.

A holder of Ganabhushanam from the Thiruvananthapuram Music College, she later studied ethno-musicology in California University.

She had served as lecturer in different colleges of the state.

Can't compose music without script and characterization:Pritam

ArtKerala — Sun, 13 May 2007 02:04:48 -0500

Music composer Pritam credited with the music of runaway blockbusters like Dhoom and its sequel Dhoom 2 to name a few says that he cannot function without a script and characterisation.

''The flavour of my music varies from film to film, which I think is disadvantageous to me. Be it films like Metro, Ankahee or Just Married, it does not matter whether the film is Dhoom or its sequel Dhoom 2 because situations and characters were different in both the films'', he told UNI in an interview.

When asked why he feels the variety of his music is disadvantageous, Pritam says that audience does not identify with his music, just like one would know that the music of films like 'Ashiqui' or Dhadkan has the stamp of Nadeem-Shravan.

But Pritam says he has learnt to compromise and prepare a bank of songs by creating his own characters and situations. ''I do not know how long I can be able to keep a stock in such a manner,'' he said.

Speaking about his latest film 'Metro' where he makes appearance in all songs of the film as a rock band with singers James, Soham and Sohail, Pritam said, ''Metro, as such, is a film which has no scope for music. But director Anurag Basu has very tactfully seeped in songs into his screenplay, without any song looking forced. That's primarily because none of the songs are lip-synced by any characters in the film and are just used as transition tracks. It was an interesting feature as every time a song is played onscreen, we turn up on screen singing the songs in the backdrop of the actual scene.'' It remains a mystery how the audience takes it. But, given the success of the music album, it looks like rock genre has entered film music. ''Rock was not an accepted genre like sufi rock earlier in film music. Here, we have used electric guitar, sitar, rock harmony, drums in the Metro music'', he explained.

Pritam says that when Anurag Basu offered him to do the Metro band, he was skeptical on whether rock would be accepted in a hindi movie. ''Anurag always thinks out of the box. In the film, the band is the sutradhar and talks about a common emotion in it'', he said.

Pritam has just finished recording a song for Sanjay Gadhvi's next movie 'Kidnap' starring Sanjay Dutt and Vidya Balan.

The music composer says he hates making item songs. ''They are like mathematics. A hooky, catchy phrase and addictive groove makes a item number. Item songs come from the brain while romantic songs come from the heart'', he said.

Pritam says his upcoming releases are 'Race', 'Goal', 'My Name is Anthony Gonsalves', 'Speed' and 'Dhol'.

''I plan to take a break for myself. I have ten releases in 2007 out of which eight have already been released. This is taking a toll on my quality,'' Pritam pointed out.

He said, ''If I am in the air conditioned recording room throughout the year, I will lose touch with the changing trends behind me. I do not want to be left behind. I want to rejuvenate myself and take note of the changes happening around me.'' Pritam said he and his Metro band are planning to cut a private album. ''But my busy schedule is not letting that happen. We have plans for it. We have also started discussing the name and the sound of our new album,'' he added.