Heterogeneous songs sourced from two,three or more music entities have been a discordant bane of film scores now for a decade. Such tendencies have made professional movie composers protest at these arbitrary decisions by directors and music companies looking for a hit at any cost. But after Raajneeti and Peepli Live this year,are multi-composer films finally making sense? The Past In the contemporary past (as in 1970s onwards),such things happened only in exceptional circumstances - Manoj Kumar introduced music director Pandurang Dikshit in Shirdi Ke Sai Baba but some devotionals were used from singer Anup Jalotas repertoire,I.S.Johar (Five Rifles) and Sunil Dutt (Nehle Peh Dehla) incorporated a hit non-film qawwali each of Aziz Nazan,who had become the rage then. B.R.Chopra weaved in a Ghulam Ali ghazal,Chupke chupke raat din situationally in Nikaah and Jaidev stepped in to complete Laila Majnu after Madan Mohans death. The first instance of bringing in an outsider for a contemporary track was of Feroz Khan getting United Kingdom-based Biddu to do the very fresh club song,Aap jaisa koi for Kalyanji-Anandjis Qurbani way back in 1980. But the trend of multiple composers was to really take off 20 years later. Anything for a hit By the late 90s the anything for a hit funda took a toll on many composers. Music barons and so many film producers had no qualms about dumping a music director mid-way and getting someone else for the rest of the songs if they thought that he was not delivering good/trendy/market-friendly stuff or sticking too much to principles! Myriad films,too well-known to waste print-space here,saw infiltrators come in,some of whom were juniors or struggling names and some being assorted pop artistes,seasonal folk sensations and what-have-you. The Bhatts - Mukesh,Mahesh and Pooja - saw nothing wrong in getting in Pakistani musicians,and Himesh Reshammiya and Pritam were brought in to compose add-on promo songs. NRI pop music groups were also among the invaders. No music director was spared - not even the mighty Nadeem-Shravan,who had to see through Himeshs entry in Footpath and that of five more composers in Hum Tumhare Hain Sanam. The alternative excuses were imaginative - a new colour,a specific requirement,the encouragement of non-film talent or even Indo-Pak harmony and recognition of talent from across the borders! What about the movies theme? Well,the films needed those songs,even if the truth was that it was the films instead that benefitted these hybrid and mostly humdrum talents professionally! Very few such cases were justified check A. R. Rahmans international commitments causing him to back midway out of Kisna and Dil Ne Jise Apna Kahaa,traditional works and folk incorporated in his Delhi-6 and Pandit Birju Maharaj being called in for composing a special traditional number in Devdas. As the approach to music became much more apologetic and a shade international,the end justified the means - even if really spectacular results were seen only in a handful of cases of add-on songs like Iktara from Wake Up Sid or Pakistani contribution Jiya dhadak dhadak jaaye from Kalyug (2005). The common thread However,the main aspect of a multi-composer film is that the tracks should not look like a hybrid pot-pourri or a mélange of songs that do not seem to belong to one story,as happens still in almost all such case. Significantly,however,Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001) was the first film in which we saw a mix-n-proper-match situation - come Jatin-Lalits title-track,Bole chudiyaan or Yeh ladka haye Allah,Aadesh Shrivastavas Say shaava shaava or Sandesh Shandilyas You are my soniya,Deewana hai dekho,Suraj hua maddham and the thematic Vande Mataram. Karan Johar said at the music release: Though there are three different composing entities,you will find a uniform tenor in my music. And he was right. The second such score took a while in coming,though in all honesty,it did seem as if the songs were fitted into the subject. Nevertheless,the songs harmoniously blended in each others company,with Anu Maliks Agar tum mil jaao (the Noorjehan mukhda reworked with fresh antaras),Roopkumar Rathods compositions Jaanejaan and Ae bekhabar and the recreated version of the Pakistani song Woh lamhe incredibly jelling together and with the highly emotional tenor of the film. Sadly future such experiments on the Bhatt front too seemed to lack in uniform calibre,come Nazar,Woh Lamhe ,Raaz - The Mystery Continues,Jashnn and even Kalyug. Is a change in the offing? But in the last two months,the amazing part is the way the songs of Raajneeti and Peepli [Live seem to blend into a seamless entity despite being completely different in source and genres from each other. While a trade analyst opines that in the first case it is purely because none of the songs are really used conventionally in-film,Jhas whimsical take on this was: I had a multi-hero film,so I decided that my music would also be multi-star! However,the four songs in Raajneeti had individual histories. Pritams Bheegi si bhaagi si was a song that Sony Music persuaded Jha to include and incorporate for the Ranbir Kapoor-Katrina Kaif romantic track,though it was barely heard for a minute within the film. Jha wanted a raag-based number for another situation and Mora piya,the biggest chartbuster so far this year,was born. Wayne Sharpes Dhan dhan dharti re came in as a by-product of the background music score after the film was complete,while Shantanu Moitras item song Ishq barse was an experiment for the normally melodic Moitra and could probably be a leftover from Khoya Khoya Chand that Jha had produced with his music. But it is Aamir Khans inspired concept that thrives in Peepli [Live. Two songs composed by the band Indian Ocean - Des mera and Zindagi se darte ho - the latter written by a legendary poet Noon Meem Rashed,a village song adapted from one played in a village called Bhadwai in Madhya Pradesh by the local musicians - Mehangai daayan - and the folk ditty Chola maati ke Ram sung and composed by Nageen Tanvir have been ingeniously assimilated in the rural satire,with some lyrics tweaked here and there. The music highlights the fact that conception and use of a song are key factors in making a score get an identity and a sync sound with a story being told. Lovers of global changes in Hindi cinema may crow at this triumph,but Aamir himself went on record to say recently that he does not know what is different cinema in 20 years in the industry! The only significant change the music of Peepli [Live thus signifies is that multiple music directors and music sourcing will work,both on-screen and commercially,provided a lot of thought and importance goes into its execution,done as per the needs of a specific film. If this is done with meticulousness,rather than looking at Hindi cinema in the OST way,perhaps it will not make much of a difference if there is one music director for a film or more.
