After a long time, felt like blogging something and with the kind words of a family member, here is my attempt at a new post. To make it more interesting, I intend to write it in 3 parts, first one dedicated to Music.
Like many others, I often feel disgusted by the bad films doing good business in India. Pondering over it, brings me to the thought of motive behind it all - the commerce and the willingness to earn.
A random visit to Rhythm House, made me realize that they were not stocking any audio cassettes, and the music section seemed to be smaller as compared to VCDs and DVDs. Same was not the case earlier. I remember when I saw a new Music World store opening in Park Street, Kolkata, I used to yearn to visit there and buy some audio cassettes to play in my SONY walkman, a gadget rendered obsolete by the advent of iPods and smartphones. Now, after LPs, audio cassettes have also gone out of fashion.
Rather, the whole business of music industry has transformed due to availability of MP3s and rampant piracy, making songs available to everyone at a surprisingly low cost or for free.
They don't ,make private music albums any more like Deewana, Mausam, et al, which used to be so famous some time back.
Why just that, the singers in Bollywood have a much smaller shelf life today as compared to the good old days.
As we see, the period of prominence for singers has shrunk significantly over the years and going forward the space for singers seem to get more and more crowded...
The whole phenomenon is explained by just one logic - The Commerce of Art..things which sell well survive and others just come and go..Jo bikta nahin, use koi poochta nahin..
Like many others, I often feel disgusted by the bad films doing good business in India. Pondering over it, brings me to the thought of motive behind it all - the commerce and the willingness to earn.
A random visit to Rhythm House, made me realize that they were not stocking any audio cassettes, and the music section seemed to be smaller as compared to VCDs and DVDs. Same was not the case earlier. I remember when I saw a new Music World store opening in Park Street, Kolkata, I used to yearn to visit there and buy some audio cassettes to play in my SONY walkman, a gadget rendered obsolete by the advent of iPods and smartphones. Now, after LPs, audio cassettes have also gone out of fashion.
Rather, the whole business of music industry has transformed due to availability of MP3s and rampant piracy, making songs available to everyone at a surprisingly low cost or for free.
They don't ,make private music albums any more like Deewana, Mausam, et al, which used to be so famous some time back.
Why just that, the singers in Bollywood have a much smaller shelf life today as compared to the good old days.
- Back in '60s and '70s, the voices of Rafi, Kishore, Mukesh, Maana Dey,rendered their voices for two generation of stars starting from Raj Kappor, Dev Anand, Dilip Kumar era to the times of Amol Palekar, Amitabh, Rishi Kapoor and all. Rather, except Manna Dey, most of these singers remained active till the time of their death.
- Towards early 90s, when the music industry was dominated by Kumar Sanu, while a smaller market share was with Udit Narayan, Vinod Rathod, etc. but his prominence came to an end around '95-'96.
- With coming of DDLJ, Raja Hindustani, DTPH, Udit Narayan had captured the prominence along with Abhijeet and other singers following him.
- Around 2000-01, with movies like Dil Chahta Hai, K3G and all, Sonu Nigam took centre-stage and his albums also rocked the nation, making him a heartthrob which was not the case for earlier playback singers.
- Gradually, around 2003-'06, Shaan and KK were getting more work, but they had competition with unconventional singers like Himesh Reshammiya and Aatif Aslam, who minted more chartbusters and tasted greater commercial success
- Over last 2-3 years, no particular singer enjoys complete dominance. Sometimes, Mika gets sucess (2011'12), whereas in some years Mohit Chauhan and Rahat Fateh Ali Khan score aces.
- In the world of female playback singers, the dominance of fewer names and trend of two big ladies sharing the market seems to be the tradition till date. For almost 3 decades, Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle continued to dominate the Bollywood songs giving way to the era of Alka Yagnik and Kavita Krishnamurthy whose voice used to reverberate in 90s when Lata and Asha were not singing too many songs except for big films . Towards early years of decade 2000-'10, Shreya Ghoshal and Sunidhi Chauhan started replacing the earlier lot and soon they became the most common voices in most movie albums.
As we see, the period of prominence for singers has shrunk significantly over the years and going forward the space for singers seem to get more and more crowded...
The whole phenomenon is explained by just one logic - The Commerce of Art..things which sell well survive and others just come and go..Jo bikta nahin, use koi poochta nahin..
