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Asha Bhosle

Disappointment at the state of playback singing
29th Mar 2006 09.51 IST
By Agencies

Asha Bhosle has publicly expressed her disappointment over the state of playback singing in Bollywood.

However, Asha is not alone. Maestros like Jagjit Singh are also talking in the same tone.

This is despite the fact that most of the songs over which questions are being raised have hit the charts for many successive weeks and even won awards.

"Earlier music directors themselves had good knowledge of classical music and would spend months on a single composition. The lyricists were themselves poets of great repute. But the whole scene has changed," rues the melody queen.

"Music directors like R D Burman would all the time think of tunes and thought ahead of his time. Recently when I went to Los Angeles for recording, American technical directors were amused at the quality of Pancham's music... It is difficult to find such passionate music directors now," says Asha.

"Playback singing has no relevance in Hindi films these days. You will hardly find any situational song in movies. There is no variety of emotions like sad, romantic or comedy," feels Ghazal king Jagjit Singh.

"Items songs are very much in demand and they have no relevance to the story line," he says.

"Quantity is overshadowing the quality," says singer Udit Narayan adding "during the time of Mohammad Rafi and Kishore Kumar, music directors would sit in the studio while songs were being recorded and experimented with many new tunes. But it is very rare to find these music directors today during recordings."

"The role of a music director has been taken over by computers. Every node is pre-set on the computer... There is very little communication between him and the singer," says Narayan.

The singers also expressed disappointment at the new-age item numbers. "Item numbers have been there in old movies also and we hold nothing against them, but they should not be vulgar and must be linked to the storyline," says Singh adding "Kajra Re is also an item song, but it is very well written by Gulzar and also has a folk base."

Citing the example of "Jhumka Gira Re" and "Parde Mein Rehne Do", Narayan says, "Even after years, we remember these classical item numbers. You do not feel bad either seeing or listening to them."

Narayan says that directors like Yash Chopra , Gulzar and Sanjay Leela Bhansali , who have immense understanding of music, have managed to keep the melody alive but the irony is that they don't make much movies.

"The taste of current generation of music directors has changed over the years. Now they are hugely influenced by west. Neither they have knowledge of classical music nor are they bothered about our culture," says Singh.

These singers are also worried at the trend of same of same type of music being given for every second movie and also becoming hit on all the channels.

"This is not a very healthy trend," says Singh. Is it manipulation of some kind? They ask.

"Fusion, remix and pop is all temporary... Ultimately it is melody which will survive," say Singh and Narayan.

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Asha Bhosle
Jagjit Singh
Udit Narayan
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Sanjay Leela Bhansali