Jaane kahan gaye voh din!

Re: # 78
No there wouldn`t be. I mean would we listen to rock for example. It`s full of besur vocalists. Look at Eric Clapton singing ``Lay down Sally``, quite terrible vocally but still an odd quality to the voice. Or Mark Knopfler singing ``Romeo and Juliet``. In the begining I tried to listen only to the Dobro guitar and try to forget the vocals. But the song grows on you.
But as Zahra mentioned earlier a lot of it is personal taste. Some of it is the milieu you are born into. For example see the similarities here.

asmahan

and
awaara

The second tune adapted from the first is in the raaga Bhairavi. Most Indians/Pakistanis would like it. Most Arab listeners would love the other.

#74 by swarrier,

What you said about Mukesh is correct. He is said to have been `bey sura`, when compared with the likes of Rafi and Manna Dey. But there was indeed a magic in his voice. So it`s not always about the `sur` ... or is it? If it was only the `sur`, there wouldn`t be half the genres there are ...

Re: # 80
Compositions by M M Kreem in Paheli, Shantanu Moitra in Parineeta , A R Rahman (Swades, Thakshak etc) when he is not being A R Rahman, are very good. Jatin-Lalit etc have given us pretty decent tunes.
Udit Narayan and Sonu Nigam, Kay Kay, Shreya Ghosal, Sunidhi Chauhan are good singers.

I don`t particularly care for the selections you have chosen.

Re: # 81, dost-mittar saheb,

Durability has to do with time and let 30, 40 or 50 years pass and then, if god permits, judge. I can give you some clues. Take the songs of Ek duje ke liye, Sajan, Aashiqui, Lekin. Twenty years have passed and the music still lingers. So, if you keep listening you will find almost equal percentage of great music all the time. Yes, I must say that poetry started to disappear after 60s but that was bound to happen. Film songs have their own limitations. When you have to write thousands of songs you can`t fit the same emotions in a limited variety of meters year after year. So, gradually lyrics gave way to free verses, even meaningless, rather abstract lines. This is called the problem of form which has to keep on changing. You must change yourself to appreciate it. This has happened in all branches of art. My point is, don`t lament the era gone by like the death of a sweetheart.

#82 by swarrier and #83 by jung,

I accept that my list was too random. Moreover, that depends on your taste and the songs you relate to. For Kabir and other saint poets you can try Kumar Gandharv, Bhimsen Joshi and even Ashwini Bhide.

Samar

samar#80:

Some of the new songs are good but they do not have the durability of the old songs. Why, I even found myelf humming Reshmayya`s ``jhalak dikhla ja`` after I heard it wherever I went to in India during my last trip.

this like sucks...i completely agree with warrier re k. amonkar, various new singers and composers (incl the great vanraj bhatiaa ...he also had a couple of asha bhosle number like chahe mar dalo raj, chahe kat dalo raja in sardari). i thankfully disagree with dm that todays songs wont last because they lack some inherent quality. i think even songs like ``aeri ri re aeri ri, kya hain yeh paheli`` from yadein (?) are great songs but get quickly forgotten because in todays world there is information deluge (warrier mentined takshak and those were very good songs too).

in ``good ol days`` we got to listen to some relatively simple songs like zillion times (e.g. lari lappa lari lappa etc) on vividh bharti and radio ceylon because there was no other entertainement medium available. repetition causes a song to become hit, this is a well-known thing in western pop-world where music publishers would blitz radio stations by paying-bribing DJs to repeat songs so that they become hits.

and mukesh is perfect for singing after a few drinks..

#79 by swarrier ,

A very good example of how a totally off-key (bey-sur) note can build the entire theme is the accoustic prelude of Emerson Lake & Palmer`s `From the Beginning` from their album `Trilogy`. This was the first time I realized Sur is not everything. In fact, Sur is quite predictable while the strategic placement of a single shockingly off-key note sets the mood for the whole composition.

I concluded from it that Sur can be learnt, but bey-sur is the work of creative genius :)

#79 by swarrier ,

A very good example of how a totally off-key (bey-sur) note can build the entire theme is the accoustic prelude of Emerson Lake & Palmer`s `From the Beginning` from their album `Trilogy`. This was the first time I realized Sur is not everything. In fact, Sur is quite predictable while the strategic placement of a single shockingly off-key note sets the mood for the whole composition.

I concluded from it that Sur can be learnt, but bey-sur is the work of creative genius :)

samar:

``Durability has to do with time and let 30, 40 or 50 years pass and then, if god permits, judge.``

Maybe. ``Yeh zindagi kay melay duniya mein kam na hongay, afsos hum na hongay``

...and I completely agree with you re. listening to Bhimsen, Bhide, Ganharav and others for saint poets. These days, I am enjoying Bhimsen`s Abhangs.


jang:

I also like that ``aeri ri re aeri ri, kya hain yeh paheli``.

i must concede however that overall lyric-making in hindi movies in older was supeior. that is one reason apparently yash chopra asked javed akhtar to start writing songs (starting with silsila i think). this must be the time when even prolific workhorse anand bakshi stopped writing ;-)

samar yar i dont think i have heard first 3 songs..? i heard rehman sing some bulbule song (from gangster?) really off-key live in an award fuction..it was awful singing :(

i dont like kumar sahnu because he sings with ``chora hua`` voice as opposed to honest full-trhoated..i guess its an attempt to make it sexy for lady-public.

Nice article dost mittar ji!!

But,its not entirely hopeless situation in recent times. A R Rehman is probably the best music director at the moment and comparable with likes of Naushad and other greats. He has created some wonderful songs from Gulzar`s lyrics ( which, many find hard to understand).

In eightees, ghazal got re-introduced into films and there were some memorable ghazals sung by Jagjit Singh in films like Arth and Saath-Saath, by Asha Bhosle in Umrao Jaan and by Suresh Wadekar in Ghaman.Rudali was a musical hit by good compositions from Bhupen Hazarika. There was some good music in Gulzar`s Maachis and more recently, someone sung ``Allah kay banday......`` in a very touching way.

Again in eightees, there was a bhajan in Aghaat which I still remember, ``itni shakti hameiN dena daata, mann ka vishwaas kamzor ho naa...``

Among lyricists, we still have inimitable Gulzar and Javed Akhtar.

#91 sometimes i think gulzar writes prose and chanllanges music-directors to compose ;-)

#92
yes, at times he can be too abstract and people keep wondering till now what the hell it means, like this song beautifully sung by lata in khamoshi, `` hum nay dekhi hai un aankhon ki mehkati khushboo, haath say chhoo kay isay rishtoN ka ilzaam na do``

#93 drsab, actually that song is not bad, its lyrical..i mean something like for example the songs from izazat..like

katra katra milti hain, katra katra jeene do
or
mere kuch saman, tumhare paas pada hain

Re: # 96, ZahraJ dear,

Don`t get too harsh on the oldies. Please! I request you not to.

Samar

Re: # 95

{People with taste}

Do yourself a favor and get the hell out of your own bubble of ``taste``. It can vary from person to person. No need to jump too much on writing about taste. Seems like you just learned the concept. I will not divulge in other implications :)