You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘amit trivedi’ tag.
It is hard to come across a sentence involving Anu Malik that isn’t preceded or succeeded by plagiarism. I too have done that in the past. It is easy for us sitting at a vantage point and unconditionally poke fun. But for once, I’d like to credit the music director for one soundtrack that is arguably his absolute best : Refugee.
Until last week, I had just heard the most popular track — Panchi Nadiyan — which I think is a very good track. I had fleeting listens to the other tracks in the past, but never really thought much of them. While I was travelling last week, I heard the other songs of Refugee closely and I’m thoroughly impressed.
It is tough to point out the best track in the album. It has to be a close call between Panchi Nadiyan, Raat Ki Hatheli Par, Aisa Lagta Hai and Mere Humsafar. The lyrics by Javed Akhtar superbly complement the music and I think he has only gone south after this film’s release in 2000.
The strongest link in the entire album is the melody. Malik has gone beyond creating obvious tunes and riffs to explore the possibilities of longer melodic constructs. Udit Narayan is in superb form and while Alka Yagnik usually annoys me, she is fairly good in this album. Sonu Nigam was at his peak around that time, and it shows.
As far as I know, none of the songs of Refugee have been blatantly plagiarized. So it is a well deserved National Award for Anu Malik and a superb effort — I’ll concede that. Malik has himself to blame for biasing our views. If he hadn’t been such a blatant lifter of tunes, he wouldn’t have to defend every new album of his as awe-riginal in interviews — although I’m not sure if he would’ve been around for as long if he hadn’t pleased his directors and producers by not providing those tracks.
But I have my complaints.
For one, the use of the verse and chorus tunes in musical interludes. This is one most obvious difference between the better music directors like A.R. Rahman, Shankar-Ehsaan-Lo, Amit Trivedi, etc. and the lesser ones like Jatin-Lalit, Nadeem-Shravan and Anu Malik. A song loses out on creativity by using the main tune played on different instruments in interludes — and it is one of the things that annoys me most.
Second, is the obvious arrangement. Malik and his like need to think out of the box when it comes to arrangement. Until that, they can never provide a different sound and will have to rely on melody. Rahman stormed into the industry with both strong arrangements and melody. It is no wonder that others still find it tough to catch up with him.
Anu Malik can be good if he wants, and Refugee only proves it. He is talented too, but then anyone whose name is placed next to Abhishek Bachchan in the credits of a movie directly seems talented.
And I’m back at the vantage point.
It’s been a while since I posted a music review. The last one was probably Dev D. at the beginning of this year (Gulaal was covered in the movie review). The reason is I just haven’t heard a good complete album for a while. I’ll give you Kaminey, but that was it. Blue might get a skip too.
I was quite happy with Coke Studio for this year, until I heard about Wake Up Sid.
I didn’t expect much from Wake Up Sid, since the music was scored by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy. After a listen, I didn’t have anything new to say, as they didn’t have anything new to offer. No doubt they are a superbly talented trio, but their choice of movies is disappointing. All their albums end up sounding similar to each other inspite of having variety within the albums. I still maintain that their greatest album is Lakshya, much to the disagreement of my friends.
Back to Wake Up Sid, if you’ve heard any SEL album, you’ve heard Wake Up Sid. The only song I liked at first glance was the title track. I almost skipped through the remaining tracks, I didn’t think there was any surprise.
Until I read in a movie review that one particular song, Iktara, was by Amit Trivedi — the same guy who gave us Aamir and Dev D; the only other music director besides A.R. Rahman whose albums I don’t ignore. I had to go back to this song.
I’m glad I did. The track could easily be mistaken for a SEL track, as it is superbly camouflaged in an otherwise stereotypical SEL album. As with all other songs I really like, I heard it a few hundred times before moving on to anything else. A gem of a song, please don’t ignore it.
I hope this experiment paves the way for more Amit Trivedi albums in the Johar camp. He could do with and thoroughly deserves some mass exposure. And more songs to singer Kavita Seth too please.
Meanwhile, SEL can go reinvent themselves in some different genres and stretch their abilities.
A win-win situation for me, I say.
I am going to keep this one very short. If I would have written this post yesterday, I would have highly praised the movie. Unfortunately, I saw Anurag Kashyap’s Gulaal between watching Dev D. and this post. I am afraid that is going to *greatly* affect this review.
Dev D. is an above average movie for sure. It is not a masterpiece as people make it out to be. But thankfully, it is not as indulgent as Anurag’s earlier release No Smoking.
The acting was alright, the music was a definite high (review here), the scenes got repetitive at times and the movie even dragged a couple of times. There were some scenes masterfully done like the one when Paro meets Dev in his hotel room. I am not sure if it was the brilliance of the execution or just the idea of having that scene.
I have a minor quibble though. Why was there a voiceover by Abhay Deol in the final scene (where he is almost run down by a car and consequently attains enlightenment) !!! It is pardonable but totally spoiled the mood for me. It was almost like the part in Khwaja Mere Khwaja where Ashutosh Gowariker thought it would be cool to show a light in the sky ! Why don’t you just trust your actors and music directors.
While the characters are obviously taken from Sarat Chandra’s novel Devdas, it might be incorrect to call it an adapdation of Devdas for the simple reason that the theme is completely different. Devdas is about a coward who seeks solace in alcohol. Dev D is about a flawed person who firstly, realizes his flaws and secondly, learns to accept those in others. An adaptation would be a Maqbool or an Omkara, where the theme is the same in a different setting.
Like I said earlier, I am finding it really difficult to praise Dev D. courtesy Gulaal. Gulaal review here.
