Dearth of Music Directors, not Singers

I do agree with you Sahana. Today everyone focuses just on money not the quality, so standard of everything is going down. We can listen old music even today and even young generation likes it while today's music is like you can like for just week/month or so... Lyrics are rarely meaningful.. I think we need people to focus on quality... Good anaysis sahana.... 👏 👏

I think today's MDs need to take a sabbatical and just disappear somewhere for a few years, and come back to compose music only when they have some real inspiration! Yes, even the film makers can go somewhere and meditate.

These MDs talk about making stars of singers, and this makes my soul cry out in torment. For God's sake, don't focus on stardom. Did anyone listen to the golden words of Asha Bhonsle - Pehle Sarasvati ko pakdo, Lakshmi apne aap peeche chali aayegi.

MDs need to focus on composing good music and singers on developing their range. We don't want stars - we loved Mohd Rafi, Lata, Talat, Asha, Manna De and others - but they were not stars. We loved Madan Mohan, SD Burman, Roshan, OP Nayyar, Salil Choudhury - and they were not stars either.

The so-called stars of today will collapse into black holes as stars generally do at the end of their lives.

We want music - not stars, not icons!

I disagree, we do have good singers, good music directors, decent lyricists

You see Bollywood has always worked on formula's for stories, for songs

current formula for songs seems to be
1. Sufi song or 1 folk song
1. dance number
1. Item song
1 love duet
1-2 male/female romantic due

now depending on how the market is responding the formula's change, if it is a dance number are getting famous, well maybe they will double the dosage, if the item songs are popular, they will double the dosage etc.

Currently the viewers like more of dance numbers or item songs, so lyrics have no significance there

We have pretty good music directors, ID gives only classical type songs, he takes the approach as Punjiniji mentioned above, the guy has no work in hand, in a recent interview he even showed his frustration and said if this continues he is going to compromise for his "roti".

Himesh is a typical of those change by market needs man, he did make some attempts to change the viewers taste's with Benaras, what happened? It bombed, finally he too has to look after his "roti". He isnt one of those running after the artistic satisfaction

The current generation likes the songs of the type they get, the machinized songs, well the MD's are gonna give them doesnt mean the MD's cant compose better, just their affinity of "roti" makes them take sensible decision 😉

Not faulting the current generation, every generation is like this, Our generation made Bappida remember? 😆

Originally posted by: sareg

current formula for songs seems to be
1. Sufi song or 1 folk song
1. dance number
1. Item song
1 love duet
1-2 male/female romantic due

No Sareg, the formula seems to be:
1. Some song, either Sufi rock or Dance or Item (what's the difference?) sung by A
2. Remix of the same song sung by A, B,C and D
3. Remix of the same song sung by D,E and F

After the songs are out, singer G will claim that he sang the original song. 😆

Hear hear! Well-said Punji-ji 👏 Needless to say an echo of what I myself feel and have felt for a long time now! But, I feel the audience / consumers are also to blame. They take in any sub-standard stuff and thereby increase the sales of the compositions by 3rd rate music directors...

Originally posted by: punjini

I think today's MDs need to take a sabbatical and just disappear somewhere for a few years, and come back to compose music only when they have some real inspiration! Yes, even the film makers can go somewhere and meditate.

These MDs talk about making stars of singers, and this makes my soul cry out in torment. For God's sake, don't focus on stardom. Did anyone listen to the golden words of Asha Bhonsle - Pehle Sarasvati ko pakdo, Lakshmi apne aap peeche chali aayegi.

MDs need to focus on composing good music and singers on developing their range. We don't want stars - we loved Mohd Rafi, Lata, Talat, Asha, Manna De and others - but they were not stars. We loved Madan Mohan, SD Burman, Roshan, OP Nayyar, Salil Choudhury - and they were not stars either.

The so-called stars of today will collapse into black holes as stars generally do at the end of their lives.

We want music - not stars, not icons!

Pure gold is always scarce.... There is a lot in it than just music.....

Unfortunately gold in music does nt have any value but the sand has... It is quite evident seeing Ismail Darbar without works... while Pritam, VS and Himesh with bunch of films.... Bollywood has become a money market and so has music.... But i dont blame MDs.... they have to give teh business to producers... there are so many films coming in one year,.... i agree that all films cant have melodious tracks... but atleast a few should have it.... a Balance of melodies and new generation would be a perfect thing.....

Its really unfortunate that the music is driven by money than ragas now.... 😊

Did I talk against my normal posts 🤔 😆

Originally posted by: punjini

No Sareg, the formula seems to be:
1. Some song, either Sufi rock or Dance or Item (what's the difference?) sung by A
2. Remix of the same song sung by A, B,C and D
3. Remix of the same song sung by D,E and F

After the songs are out, singer G will claim that he sang the original song. 😆

Actually I will agree with Sareg here. Today the demands on MD's are a lot more than they were back in the days. Back then, you could have 5 songs of the same genre - all slow, romantic/tragic - and people would be happy. Here if one song in the album is similar to the next, people start complaining about lack of variety.

I think today's top MD's are a lot more versatile - and can churn up a variety of songs in various different genres (yes, even Himesh). Was just reading this SEL article where Shankar mentioned that they have 1 disco, 1 romantic, and 1 hip-hop funky number in every album, so it could suit all tastes.

That's what the older MD's lacked - maybe because they had fewer choices. I think the first real versatile MD was RDB - before him all MD's followed a niche.

Originally posted by: shadyhtown

Actually I will agree with Sareg here. Today the demands on MD's are a lot more than they were back in the days. Back then, you could have 5 songs of the same genre - all slow, romantic/tragic - and people would be happy. Here if one song in the album is similar to the next, people start complaining about lack of variety.

I think today's top MD's are a lot more versatile - and can churn up a variety of songs in various different genres (yes, even Himesh). Was just reading this SEL article where Shankar mentioned that they have 1 disco, 1 romantic, and 1 hip-hop funky number in every album, so it could suit all tastes.

That's what the older MD's lacked - maybe because they had fewer choices. I think the first real versatile MD was RDB - before him all MD's followed a niche.

I think you are highly mistaken if you think that the songs in earlier movies were all of the same genre and there is more variety nowadays! It is a paradox but in trying to have more variety nowadays, they are ending up all the same.

Take the songs in the latest movie "Jhoom Barabar Jhoom". This could have been composed by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy or Himesh or anyone else of this generation. There was nothing distinctive about this album.

In the earlier films, the variety lay in the situations and meanings and hence the songs seemed like they were of different genres. In Guide, there is "aaj phir jeene ki tamanna hain" - a completely joyful song with layers of meanings. In the same movie, there is "din dhal jaaye, raat na jaaye" which conveys completely different sentiments. And if you take "saiyaan beimaan" it is a fast classical song, again with layers of meanings.

There used to be songs sung by siblings, songs sung my mothers for kids, by kids for mothers, motivational songs, spiritual songs, wildly ecstatic songs - there were songs for hundreds of situations! If you see this old movie called "Miss Mary", there is a lovely song where Meena Kumari blasts the male gender in "yeh mard badey dilsard badey bedard, na dhoka khaana," and a little later in the movie, the male protagonist gives it back to her by twisting the lyrics of the same song and teasing the females.

In the movie "Munimji" there is a song "dil ki umangey hain jawan" in which Nalini Jaywant and Dev Anand rag Pran and force him to sing in his off-key voice.

Talk about variety? Sorry, the days of variety are over! Now it is the reign of sameness, staleness and mediocrity.