Saturday, February 20, 2010
Female Playback singing in Bollywood...RIP???
A few days back, I was going through the music review of "Tum Mile", on a site. the review said, "yet another all male singer album from Pritam, after "Life In a Metro". That comment led me to think...will there be a day in bollywood, when our leading ladies will be barred of the opportunity to lip sync those beautiful songs, which have the power of deciding a fate for a film? Will there be a day, when "duet songs" will be a myth? I think the day is not far away, with our composers ignoring females in their playlist..when our beautiful leading ladies will have no voices to sing for them, while our heroes will take away all the acclodes by the romanticism, or the sexy dance sequences in the songs, we wont have a Nargis singing "pyar hua ikrar hua", or a Madhubala singing "pyar kiya to darna kya", or a Kajol singing "Tujhe dekha to ye jana sanam". I really miss the presence of duets today...they are way far and few. If I remember, the last duets per excellence i heard were "Piyu bole" from parineeta, and "tu bin bataye" from RDB. And if I take a look at last year's albums, while each album had a leading male song as its USP, for eg, Masakkali/Arziyan/Rehna Tu from Delhi 6, Hai junoon from New York, Twist/Aj din Chhadeya from Luv aj Kal,Prem ki Naiyya from Ajab prem ki.. and many more, there were only 3 significant female songs to speak of..genda ful from Delhi 6, Iktara from Wake Up Sid, and Zubi Dubi from 3I. the year before the scenary was no better. With umpteen number of item songs where the instruments bang more than the voices, and the heroes suit more than the heroines, the hindi film industry is slowly losing its songstress. Thats bad, and thats unfortunate. though I really appreciate the return of melodies in Hindi songs in the hands of directors like Rahman,and Shankar Ehsaan Loy, I really miss good duets, or even a good female song...a "barso re" comes, but only once in 2-3 yrs. hope this improves.
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I think this article is very relevant.Yes duets are getting lost but hey female voice still rules. Most of the best songs of the year are female. plus music directors like Rahman use d voices acc to their need and use superbly.So nuthing 2 worry about that.Look at Blue...so many female voices!!! what innovative music!Infact i think days of lip sync duets are over,and dats good.it hampers the narrative of a film.background scores have oodles of female voices.thanx again 2 rahman :)
ReplyDeletethe main aim of the article was the gradual irrelevance of the female voices, not the triumph of rahman. rahman is the best in the business, but not the only one. and when u watch realistic films, lip sync duets hamper the narrative, but in fantasies like parineeta, they play an integral part. but today, even in these films, only male voices are getting importance. that is why we have so many leading male singers..atif aslam, mohit chauhan, kk, shaan, sonu nigam..but only ..and only 2 leading female singers in bollywood...sunidhi chauhan and shreya ghosal. ya i liked blue too..but things are not going to change with only 1 blue a year!!
ReplyDeletedont be pessimistic...listen to Himesh and Pritam genre of songs if u want average songs....for quality albums u have enough female leads :) shreya herself is doing a great job.what i want 2 say is that the 70s era and dis era are different. we dont have dat kind of films anymore.
ReplyDeletedear...u cant ignore pritam and himesh if u look at the entire bollywood scenario..pritam in particular...who alone directs 8 of the 10 hit albums per year.. shreya is doing a great job i agree..but that is by way far and few..maybe the era of 70s and today are different, maybe the music is different..but you cant erase a whole genre of songs just like that!!
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