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Music for the STARS
Hindi cinema’s current “wannabe global” stance is sidelining the lip-sync songs that have created – and sustained – so many stars and films. Instead of opting for rooted, original content, it is not seeing the writing on the wall and is, to mix metaphors, barking up the wrong tree
As early as in the ‘90s, the first experiment with multi-music director films began, but to date, the best or most saleable music scores have always had single composers, save for rare cases when a guest composer came in just for one song (Devdas, Jab We Met). The only real exceptions - that proved this rule -remain Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham… (2001) and Zeher (2005).
But they never learn. Hindi film music is being increasingly attacked by a whole bevy of brat-pack filmmakers, corporate honchos and others – including, sadly, some newbie actors. The lack of a proper music score is one of the prime reasons for the low percentage of hit films today, a fact corroborated by the dispassionate and business-like trade analysts. It is also one of the most vital factors why the topmost stars of today remain in the 40-plus age bracket, because they are rooted in Hindi films and their music and believe in a connect with the audience.
A big-time filmmaker of one-time song-studded blockbusters and like-minded filmmakers arguing that “characters who are not singers cannot sing to each other” are in one stroke, negating the far more realistic, substantial and enduring cinema of V. Shantaram, Raj Kapoor, Guru Dutt, Bimal Roy and Hrishikesh Mukherjee and have gone into a long state of denial about audience-connect and Hindi cinema.
If their intention is to become ‘real’, they would do well to dwell on the fact that the greatest global grossing films remain Hollywood’s unreal fantasies like animation features, VFX-oriented action dramas and sci-fi sagas. So why this undue obsession with reality when cinema is about creativity of the imagination and primarily about great entertainment, with the medicinal message optional and “equally but not less important than the sugar-coating”, as Hrishikesh Mukherjee once said?
And so, since the overseas films they want to compete with suspend reality for their entire running times and show macabre creatures and aliens generated by VFX, why cannot we suspend reality pleasantly for 20 minutes to enhance the storytelling impact with lip-sync songs, generating wholesome music, lyrics and entertainment in the bargain? Were masters at filming songs all the way to Vijay Anand, Raj Khosla, Manmohan Desai and Subhash Ghai and today’s Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Rajkumar Hirani and Farah Khan intellectually wanting because they made this choice and respected the audiences? And just for the record, wasn’t it Hum Aapke Hain Koun!... and Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge that first opened overseas business, consolidated later by the music-rich Dil To Pagal Hai, Pardes, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam?
And if the rationale of such filmmakers is ‘reaching a global audience’, we want to know two things: first and most important, has the Indian audience (outside the so-called metro intelligentsia that is just a dot on the Indian human map) suddenly become completely unimportant for them? And two, do these filmmakers seriously think that the people are morons because they are rejecting their ‘with-it’ worse-ions of international cinema? Won’t we be better off reflecting our own cultural ethos and cinematic grammar? Just imagine how atrocious the music of 3 Idiots and Om Shanti Om would have sounded minus lip-sync!
In a moment of pique at a recent industry meeting on Intellectual Property Rights, writer-lyricist Javed Akhtar asked Aamir Khan whether it was the chartbuster Papa kehte hain from Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak that made him a star or the other way around? Akhtar was only, though in a different context, showing a mirror to the actor who otherwise has a deep respect for music, as seen by the major role songs played in his best films like Sarfarosh, Lagaan, Dil Chahta Hai and the very different Taare Zameen Par.
Sadly, this mirror should also be shown to stars like Ranbir Kapoor, Neil Nitin Mukesh and Abhay Deol who want changes for the sake of change. Or are they actually being trapped in the unholy nexus of corporate honchos and filmmakers who have scant connect with the ‘real’ India paradoxically to the realism they ironically want to present?
While stars definitely add value to a song and enhance it with their talent and charisma, the fact remains that songs – and their creators (composers and lyricists), their inspirations (filmmakers) and couriers (singers) do more for a star than the other way round. Hindi cinema has a tradition of star debuts backed by hit songs, all the way to the songs Shahid Kapoor got in Ishq Vishq and even Ranbir Kapoor in the commercial flop that was Saawariya.
So just imagine where Rishi Kapoor, Kamal Haasan in Hindi films, Sunny Deol, Jackie Shroff, Shah Rukh Khan, Sharmila Tagore, Saira Banu, Zeenat Aman, Dimple Kapadia, Jaya Prada, Sridevi, Mandakini, Manisha Koirala and many, many more would have been without that mega-push from their debut films’ hit music and - yes - lip-sync songs?
If the argument is that these artistes would have made it on talent anyway, pause to think where Shammi Kapoor was before O.P.Nayyar’s Tumsa Nahin Dekha, moving on to what S.D.Burman’s Aradhana did for the four-flop Rajesh Khanna backed, as luck would have it, by Do Raaste, The Train and Bandhan in less than six months.
Ponder also on where Raj Kapoor’s career was before Shankar-Jaikishan’s Barsaat, Shashi Kapoor’s before Kalyanji-Anandji’s Jab Jab Phool Khile, Jeetendra’s before Laxmikant-Pyarelal’s Farz and Zeenat Aman’s before R.D.Burman’s Hare Rama Hare Krishna.
Reflect then on the humungous contribution of music to the careers of these stars and others - Raj Kapoor, Shammi Kapoor, Dev Anand, Dilip Kumar, Rajendra Kumar, Manoj Kumar, Rishi Kapoor, Jeetendra and Rajesh Khanna again, Govinda, Shah Rukh Khan, Mehmood, Johnny Walker, Pran in his “good man” phase, Vyjayanthimala, Asha Parekh, Nutan, Waheeda Rehman, Hema Malini, Zeenat Aman, Madhuri Dixit and even Urmila and even Kareena Kapoor, not forgetting Helen. Anbd we are only mentioning the cream.
The stars, being in a position of power, must now start putting their foot down in this matter – for where will they also be on their stage shows and other public appearances without dancing to and sometimes belting out songs associated with them? Arguably the most successful Hindi film star of all time – Amitabh Bachchan – has publicly and on record acknowledged the monumental contribution of his composers, lyricists and playback singers as much as his filmmakers, writers and co-stars in his unparalleled success. In fact Bachchan’s Jumma Chumma Live Tonite album with Sridevi and Kalyanji-Anandji remains a Platinum Disc winner!
Dev Anand rewinds to no one more than Kishore Kumar and S.D.Burman, Dilip Kumar and Shammi Kapoor are ever-willing to speak volumes about Mohammed Rafi, Naushad and Shankar-Jaikishan, and Raj Kapoor called Mukesh his soul and got devastated when first Shailendra and then Jaikishan passed away.
When these titans could understand the all-pervading role lip-sync songs played in making them living legends or immortal figures, why are the current newbies not learning this primary school level lesson about Hindi cinema?
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