Voices with a difference
This is a time of flux in Bollywood music. Popular bastion of male playback singing tradition is slowly crumbling and a new sound of music is emerging. We have already analyzed the Himesh Reshammiya- phenomenon earlier (in the article 'Reshammiya Rocks') but even the super-success of songs like Rahat Fateh Ali Khan's Man Ki Lagan, Kunal Gajawalla's Bheege Honth Tere, Kailash Kher's Allah Ke Bande Hans De, Adnan Sami's Meter Down, Zubin Garg's Yaa Ali Raham Ali, Atif Aslam's Aadat, Naresh Iyer's Rubaroo, James's Bheegi Bheegi andKK's Kya Mujhe Pyar Hai in recent times cannot be taken as some random, isolated selections by the audience. It is in fact a definite pointer towards changing tastes and trends in Indian popular music. Suddenly the conventionally accepted 'perfect' voices are finding themselves outshined by unconventional, 'imperfect' voices and that, too in a sustained manner. The 'unconventional' is in and the 'conventional' finds its days numbered!
Historic Perspective
Macho, melodious and musical – these three Ms have traditionally defined the qualities of an ideal leading man's voice in Hindi film music for last 50 years. True, there were exceptions right from the beginning of these norms. Mukesh's nasal voice, Hemant Kumar's heavy bass voice, Talat Mahmood's tremulous voice and Manna Dey's classically trained open throated voice were variations of the set pattern. But none of these great singers really managed to create a successful vocal prototype, which would be followed by future generation of singers. (Singers like Manhar Udhas and Nitin Mukesh following in Mukesh's footsteps was a short-lived phenomenon, not extending beyond a few years.) Mohammed Rafi and Kishore Kumar were the only two real model male voices whose styles were later copied by dozens of playback singers. A typical ideal male lead playback should either sound like Rafi or Kishore – that practically became the norm over the years.
The male prototype voices
Rafi's mellow, melodious virtuosity had carried the day in the 50s and 60s and Kishore Kumar's heavier, macho style ruled the roost in the 70s and 80s. After the two legends departed in the 80s, for next 15 years, almost every new singer came into the fray following their styles. If singers like Mahendra Kapoor, Anwar, Shabbir Kumar, Mohammed Aziz, Suresh Wadkar and Sonu Nigam all took their first steps in film-music trying to vocally match the Rafi- standards; then crooners like Amit Kumar, Abhijeet, Kumar Sanu, Babul Supriyo and Shaan tried their best to sound like Kishore Kumar. Many of these singers might have evolved their own vocal identities later but their original school of singing remained well-apparent to music-lovers. The audience readily accepted these 'similar sounding' singers. The composers were also comfortable setting tunes for these 'set pattern' voices.
Again there were exceptions. The occasional successes of a deep bass-voiced Bhupendra( Dil Dhoondhata Hai), a high pitched nasal voiced Narendra Chanchal (Main Benaam Ho Gaya), a robust folksy styled Jaspal Singh (Geet Gaata Chal) and a gruff husky-toned Rahul Dev Burman (Mehbooba O Mehbooba) were mainly in the 'non-hero-songs' category. In those decades, the South Indian singers Yesudas and S.P.Balasubramaniam and a refreshingly unique Pahadi voice Udit Narayan emerged as perhaps the only original-sounding 'hero's voices' which were unaffected by the conventional Rafi- Kishore influence.
The change of guard
Entry of A.R. Rahman's new techno-savvy music and the short-lived Indipop phenomenon were two events that started the inevitable change of guard in the mid-90s. Robust, high-pitched singing of Sukhvinder Singh (Chhainya Chhainya) and A.R.Rahman himself (Dil Se Re) had found immediate appreciation but the frequency in which such 'different' voices were heard was still limited. With Indipop revolution, every Tom, Dick and Harry started releasing own music albums and that opened the floodgates for new voices. Once these winds of change started to blow, they continued working up a real storm. Now the generation- X audience seemed to want a change in the set patterns and thus we started seeing (or rather hearing!) voices much different in timbre and texture compared to traditionally popular leading voices.
Nowadays, the 'singers' come into the fray with practically no musical training-sometimes not even having the know-how of basic notes- and- rhythm-coordination. After all, advanced recording techniques and catchy orchestration are there to do half their work. Out of the original 3 Ms- melody and musicality have almost become obsolete qualities, just the macho masculinity with a distinct style is often enough for a voice to succeed. The audiences have become much more lenient. Somehow these unconventional voices-many of them with apparent musical flaws, have been accepted and appreciated wholeheartedly. Today the 'prototype perfect voice with a link to past' is a dying concept- the contemporary singing voice just needs to have a different, interesting sound.
That's why songs of high-pitched piercing voices like KK, Kunal Ganjawalla, Atif Aslam, Ali Azmat, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, Zubin Garg and Kailash Kher and those of heavy-bass voices like Adnan Sami and James are ruling the current charts. Bollywood music is becoming an intriguing mix of unconventional Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi voices. These are the creators of the new-age global sound in Hindi playback music. Himesh Reshammiya has already cashed on this phenomenon but don't be surprised if tomorrow, you find all these unusual voices totally taking over Bollywood music from the last remaining conventional leading man's voices like Sonu Nigam and Shaan!
Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon
Indian Mythology
Sampoorna
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