We are, in fact, waiting for someone to change it.” After our batch, nobody has changed the sound yet. “Till today, everybody is following the same template. “The current commercial sound of Bollywood was shaped by three of us: Vishal-Shekhar, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy and me,” says Pritam, putting his phone away. And, of course, also birth the scourge that is the Bollywood item song. Their combined discography would introduce millions of uninitiated Indians to rock ( Life In A… Metro, 2007 Rock On!!, 2008), sufi rock (the entire Vishesh Films oeuvre in the past decade), flamenco ( Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, 2011) and bossanova and swing ( Barfi!, 2012). The musical overhaul brought by a few of these composers in those few years set a blueprint for what Bollywood music would sound like by and large for the next decade. As did fresh-on-the-block Vishal- Shekhar’s Pyar Mein Kabhi Kabhi (1999 and Jhankar Beats (2003). Some of the earliest films Pritam composed for, such as Mere Yaar Ki Shaadi Hai (2002) and Dhoom (2004) fell in this zone. In 2001, Dil Chahta Hai came as cool breeze with its relatable script and music (courtesy the then-newly formed composer trio Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, who had worked on Mission Kashmir (2000), Rockford (1999) and Shool (1999) previously), almost paving the way for a new breed of films with modern plots that demanded a more youthful musical approach. If Rahman pioneered a new sound that was probably impossible to carboncopy, there was brewing alongside a more popular music upheaval that would soon sweep mainstream Bollywood. The man would go on to compose some of the most memorable soundtracks in contemporary cinema, such as Dil Se…(1998), Taal (1999), Lagaan (2001) around the noughties to the relatively more recent Rockstar (2011) and Highway (2014).
Old hindi jhankar beats songs full#
Rahman provided the first big break with Ram Gopal Varma’s Rangeela in 1995. Although the young composer had already spawned a sonic revolution in the South music industry in the early Nineties””Bollywood got a whiff with Roja (1992) and Bombay (1995), both Tamil films by Mani Ratnam that released Hindi soundtracks””it wasn’t until his Hindi debut Rangeela came out that Bollywood experienced the full impact of Rahman’s genius. The real alternative voices, on the other hand, such as rock bands like Pentagram, Indus Creed, Indian Ocean, Thermal and a Quarter and Motherjane, all of who took off in the Nineties, were doing their own thing but not at a level that captured the imagination of the entire nation.Īs far as Bollywood music was concerned, something had to give. Interestingly, this uncool Bollywood was, to some extent, offset by a burgeoning brigade of major label-backed Indipop stars Lucky Ali, Silk Route, K.K., Euphoria et al were a rage and defined the young (but also mainstream) sound of India. Back in the day, a song didn’t qualify as filmi material till it had a mawkish melody and the vaporous vocabulary of pyaar, ishq and mohabbat. The saccharine soundtracks of Nineties Bollywood films championed by the likes of Anu Malik, Nadeem Shravan, Jatin-Lalit and Anand Raj Anand were a formidable force that showed no signs of fading away even by the turn of the millennium. His reputation as Bollywood’s most consistent hit-maker is now a given. From slamming as many as 19 films a year during his most maddening years, he is now taking up not more than three to four projects. The decluttering has also extended to his work. His hawkish home staff keep a strict check on everything that goes into his body, and as much as he craves rice every afternoon, all he gets most times is a bowl of soupy vegetables. After years of letting his health go to the dogs to keep his job, the 45-year-old composer is now making an effort to eat and drink right. Taking the cue, Pritam does a swift bottoms-up with both the glass and the vial and hands them over to the man. There’s a soft knock on the door and a staff enters to clear the table. It is her birthday today and he had forgotten to wish her in the morning. It’s 7.30 in the evening and he is having a bit of a bump trying to put together a small dinner party for his wife. Pritam is sitting on the corner seat of a brown L-shaped sofa, busy fielding incessant calls on his cellphone.
Next to the glass is a tiny vial of medicine bearing a label in microscopic print. Photo: Prabhat Shetty for Rolling Stone IndiaĪ glass containing a green juice sits atop a teak coffee table in Bollywood composer Pritam’s music den, located within a residential area in Mumbai’s Andheri suburb. Pritam addresses how he went from ‘the plagiarist’ to the go-to person for guaranteed hits in Bollywood.
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