Monthly Archives: February 2009

“Emosanal Atyachar” from Dev D

February 9, 2009
Emosanal Atyachar

Emosanal AtyacharMy browser (Firefox) spell-checker suggested me to correct the word to 'Emotional' - but - no Thanks! Once you have stopped wondering (and laughing) about quirky spelling, listen to the most celebrated song of the movie Dev.D...

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And the brass band version: ek do teen char chhe…. where is paanch??

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There is a reason I put the rock version of the song first and then the brass band version, read on to find why.

R-rated version:

There is a R-rated version out there, though never claimed, but I have a strong feeling, that the makers of the movie themselves created it for ‘promosanal atyachar’! If you are upto it, find it on youtube or google it. To maintain the sanity of the blog, I had to resist myself posting the link. Its full of hindi abuses, and I believe, is sung by the same singer who did the brass band version.

Amit Trivedi, by now only two films old. But stirring the industry enough, just by his amazing unconventionalism. Pure creativity, unadulterated. First he made the huge impact with the track from Aamir, “Haara“. God knows where was he for all these years. From various sources I gathered, he was an arranger for Om, the fusion band’s debut album (remember the awesome sufi-rock track Maula? the song was later used in movie Iqbal). The album was composed by Shriram Iyer and Bobo (the erstwhile guitarist of one of the early rock bands in India, Shiva). Amit Trivedi also composed music for whoever that sappy singer named Abhijit Sawant is! Ya ya, I know who he is … don’t get too hung up over him!

But none of those earlier work has made me pause and take notice of his music - before I heard ‘Aamir’ and now, ‘Dev D’. Very creative and original. Very unorthodox and to raw (in a good way).

The brass band version has all its unorthodox treatment and shock value to get you hooked, and no wonder they have been using it heavily for promotion. But musically, it really doesn’t offer much. On the other hand, the rock version is very well performed and well sung (sung by Amit Trivedi himself).

I didn’t like the opening of the song though, the tingly keyboard patch and the female chorus ooohhh… part. It almost reminds me of opening of ‘Dil to pagal hai’ title track. So for me the song begins at the drums. And the way it takes off after that, no looking back. Some very powerful vocalss follow - the best part being the pause followed by big Aaarrrghhhh …. its crazy like hell! And btw, that Aaaarrrrgggghhhhh is done by none other than Anurag Kashyap (Director) himself. Amit Trivedi’s voice has the adequate gruffness to it, and is a good justice to the rock version. Have to say one more thing about Amit Trivedi influenced by himself - the ending of Hat Ja Re sounds just like “..dasti hi jaaye” line from his earlier hit “Haara” from Aamir.

The brass band version is just novelty and cheeky lyrics, and nothing else. Though great ‘promosanal atyachar’ material, the video is even more cheesy - two hippies in elvis costume!

In coming days, I will be writing more about few other songs from Dev.D. Amit Trivedi is one of the best thing to happen to hindi commercial music in recent times. So don’t miss a chance to listen to music of Aamir and Dev.D.

References:

The makings of Dev D (check the last 3-4 minutes of the following video, where they talk about music)

“Haara” from Aamir (music by Amit Trivedi)

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“Maula” from Iqbal (Music arrangement by Amit Trivedi)

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“Sapnon se bhare naina” from Luck by Chance

February 1, 2009

This is the only song I will be reviewing from the movie Luck by Chance. Because I believe this is the only song of the movie that stands musically above the rest, and will be around for much longer after the movie is gone.

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Check the song out.

This one truly brings Shankar, the powerhouse of vocals. In many of the past compositions of SEL (Shankar, Ehsaan & Loy) trio, I always thought Shankar Mahadevan was way underutilized. Either they are churning out too many pop songs (more of Loy’s influence) or they are doing Rock (more of Ehsaan’s influence), and leave little space for Shankar’s classical background. I am glad they exercised those muscles in this song.
Its essentially a vocals solo. If you listen to the background, it remains awefully constant throughout the song. But its hardly felt, because Shankar in the driver seat, takes the song through so many variations, you just don’t notice the 4minutes of monotonus background. Great opening bass notes though. And soon, the loop based background track takes over. The entire song has hardly any organic part, except the vocals. Many of Rahman’s songs fall into the similar category too (for example, listen to Bombay “Tu hi re”, its the vocals that gives awesome variation to a rather monotonous background).

“Tu hi re” from Bombay

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or even “Dil se” title track, sung by Rahman himself (the ENTIRE song is in a single chord ‘E’)

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Way back, before Shankar Mahadevan assumed ‘Breathless’ middlename, he produced a fusion album with Hariprasad Chaurasia, Karl Peters, Sivamani. He did some scat style classical singing. I haven’t heard that style of hindustani classical rendering till date. I surely have the CD somewhere, I will try to include a clip here in future. Few vocal improvisations in this song reminds me of that album. Thumri style singing as per him in the video below. The portions where the drums fade and only bass grooving and then drums kick in, adds to the impact of the song.

Shekhar, the voice behind "Yeh zindagi to"

Shekhar, the voice behind

None of the other songs from the movie are worth reviewing in my opinion. They will fade over time. “Baware” has good energy, and even more enrgized by Hrithik Roshan’s presence in the song. “Yeh Zindagi Bhi” is sung by Shekhar of Vishal Shekhar fame. It almost feels like Shankar did “Desi Girl” from movie Dostana (music director: Vishal Shekhar), and so Shekhar had to return the favor. the track is liked by many, but passable. Shekhar should stick to music direction only, and give chance to real vocalists, whose bread and butter is to do playback singing!

Here’s Shekhar’s “Yeh Zindagi Bhi”:

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And here’s an excellent cover done by a friend George Kuruvilla over the backing track arranged by JaySwami.


Yeh Zindagi Bhi (With Jayswami) | Music Codes

Here’s the making of the song.

Luck by chance

While I am on the topic, a little opinion about the movie. An excellent debut effort by Zoya Akhtar from the creative powerhouse lastname, that rules the Bollywood right now, ‘Akhtar’! Its a movie about making movies. The good, bad and ugly side of it, and realism at its best. Beyond the gloss & glitter of Bollywod, what lies beneath, the underbelly. Beautifully written and acted by the new-age method actor Farhan Akhtar, and directed by Zoya Akhtar. Box office hit, it may not be. Did I like it? 100% Yes. Are everyone going to like it? Mostly No. And it depends on how much apetite one has for watching realism. Most Bollywood movies are of Escapism category. Okay - I am here to talk about music and not the movie, sorry, I got little carried away!

Posted in: 2009 – No Comments