Crooning copycats go off track
Anjali Singh Jaiswal
[ Saturday, June 24, 2006 07:22:21 pmTIMES NEWS NETWORK ]
Criticised for lacking originality, winners of reality shows fail to strike the right note in the Indian music industry.
A year after their much-hyped victory on popular TV shows, Abhijit Sawant, the nation's first Indian Idol, Fame jodi Qazi Tauqeer and Roop Rekha, Sa Re Ga Ma Pa winner Debojit are still to carve a place for themselves in the music industry, much like VIVA and Asma, bands formed with winners of the Kiska Band Bajega contest in the past.
Having shot to fame singing popular numbers and imitating established singers, they still thrive on borrowed success, crooning songs of well known music directors, lyricists and singers to keep themselves in the public 'ear'.
"But what else do you expect?" asks music director Lalit, "The route these young singers have taken to make a career in Bollywood is very unprofessional.
There is no innovation in their performance. And how long can one live off someone else's work? We don't want mimics but talented singers with a style of their own."
Having judged shows to pick such winners himself, he avers, "Most of the contestants are quite mediocre and require a lot of training to meet our standards.
Take Ujjaini, Sunanda, Himani and Sharib for example. They all have sung for me, par koi ga nahin paata hai (but nobody can sing). Yet they are adjudged winners. How that happens is anybody's guess."
Agrees music director Aadesh Srivastava, "TV shows put us on the judges' panel to pick out those with potential and yet, they go by what the public votes say. We pick a candidate suitable for the music industry based on our experience, but that is overlooked. Naturally, winners of such shows chosen by the public's mandate will always be misfits in the music industry since they are devoid of any talent. Na originality raheti hai, na quality (There's neither originality nor quality). Be it Sonu Nigam, Anu Malik, Himesh, Shaan or Lucky Ali, they have struggled for years to reach where they are today and have not got success overnight."
Not just music directors, but event managers are also disillusioned by the quality of goods being delivered by the winners of talent hunt shows. "On TV, they all sound good but you have to work with them to know their calibre. Take Debojit for instance: I was taken aback when he won the Sa Re Ga Ma Pa contest.
I had worked with him a few years prior to his win. He participated in a show organised by this UAE TV channel as a lead singer, but he could not even get the notes right," says Rim Jhim, a Dubai-based event manager, without mincing any words.
Nevertheless, the new kids on the block remain undeterred and feel success is theirs despite all odds. Like Abhijeet Sawant, who has to his credit a few albums of his own, "I agree that we are still forced to sing numbers of well known singers instead of our own, in all the public shows we perform. But once we start getting offers for playback singing, things will change. I have given myself three years to establish myself, uske baad dekhenge."
As grounded as he may sound, Qazi Tauqeer and Roop Rekha feel otherwise: "We are performers, not just singers. Today people don't want to hear someone just sing, they look for entertainment as well.
And that's what we provide," says Qazi. Pitches in the Bong singer, "Have you seen Lataji singing on stage? She is totally deadpan, but watch our shows, they are full of life. Yeh hai hamari originality. Yes, we don't sing our own songs but the unique way in which we render these songs, sets us apart." They are singing their own tune, indeed!
anjali.singh@timesgroup.com
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