SOUVIK CHAKRABORT Y
MURDER OF MELODIES
From the EDM corrupted tu cheez badi hai mast mast to the oddly placed Shah Rukh in laila mein laila, Bollywood is going head over
heels in an effort to serve stale old wine in stained bottles. The trend is a part of a never ending fetish, it has been tried a zillion times in
the past and it would be standing tall as a popular influence in the Bollywood soundscape for the ages to come. The foci of discussion
however begets from the existential qualms of a rational mind, which cannot help but ask, isn't it supposed to be a creative medium?
Music saleability and acceptance today has largely been
a square root to the amount of views it garners on online
platforms; and it is there that lies the interest of making the
soundtrack an 'eye candy' rather than a ear-rollicking piece.
The affinity for the tried and tested formula, thus, is at an
all time high. Here are a catalogue of some complimentary
factors that amount to this crazy phenomenon.
The rise of the EDM and MIDI generation has predominantly
led to a new crop of music, which has shifted the focus from
melodifying lyrics to sequencing them into dopeshot loops.
The phrase, "music is my drug' has finally found its meaning,
ever the more than before. Beat breaks are not as important
as the monotonous cacophony of bass boosts and cranked
up highs.Everything boils down to how many discos would
ideally be throbbing the foot tapping numbers.
Stars are alligned to selling the idea that whatever they
are doing is to "pay homage" to the cults and legends of
yesteryears. Be it the stars going brouhaha for Laila Mein
Laila (from Qurbani, 1980), to singers and musicians vouching
for re incarnates of songs like Humma Humma (from Bombay,
1995), and indigestible versions of Tamma Tamma (from
Thanedaar, 1990) and Tu Cheez Badi Hai Mast Mast (from
Mohra, 1994). The trend of this revival works alright, not just
because of the brand value added to the films by the star casts,
but also by the heavy weight veteran directors like Abbas-
Mustan and also the legendary big names like David Dhawan
is reincarnating tracks like Oonchi Hai Building and Tan
Tana Tan, from Judwaa (1997) for the sequel to the same.
But these are not the only the responsible groups to have
made a difference on the musical scene. The largest influence
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has grossly stemmed out of the necessity for selling out music
rights in order to earn a significant return of investment.
Producers do not dream of selling a roof tearing revenue from
the sales of compact drives or digital release; rather their
primary focus is on the rights sales, and to survive the cut
throat competition the approach has to be of a steep climb up
the ladder, with the glance of an ambitious mercenary. The
economies of sale has ensured that there is a dwindling fall of
the quality in terms of either lyrics or compositions.
That leaves us with one final point of discussion, what about
the use of situational music in our movies?
In order to put this to consideration, we must first
acknowledge the fact that our actors and most importantly the
directors, no longer prefer to have lip synching songs. Today,
playback tracks are presented as the interior monologues of
the protagonists who are filmed as a timelapse in a fast paced
urban high street (without uttering a single word) and synced
in the post with a song underlay, which essentially adds mood
and feel to the entire story. Now, all of this totally demands
the use of deepening lyrics, rhymes and prosodies. But, the
Bollywood megalomaniac knows how to whisper into the
consumerist mind of a sizeable chunk of an audience and so
it goes on directly into manoeuvering the unimportant to the
bigger truth of 'entertainment', thus the less populist pleasure
of the sapiosexuals in reading between the lines of a ghazal
is termed 'arty' and not considered as a main course delight
of true 'entertainment'. Hence the inevitable consequence of
the glittery glitzy tracks with a seemingly incoherent and an
unfortunately incorrigible playlist of hundred percent pirated
music of our younger generation! Who said all pornographies
had to have visuals?