I feel cheated

Neither did someone steal from me nor did anyone siphon away any money from me (if at all there is any to siphon that is). This piece is about the fact that I, an avid music lover, is fed up with the sad state of affairs in the Indian music scene. Yes I am sad and livid at the same time. Sad because there seems to be a strange sense of acceptance in the whole scheme of things, livid because these people peddle away other’s music and become the zenith of creative genius in the minds of unsuspecting and (in many cases) ignorant listeners.

The malaise is seriously a big menace in the Hindi Film Industry. In an age where numbers rule the roost, on an average a music director lends his “creative” talent to approx 20+ films – each album having 7-8 songs. If I leave out the recording days and an well-deserved break we are staring at a song a day!!!! A gargantuan task even for our highly paid “motley crew”. So inspiration is easy cheap and instant claim to fame. Pick up a best selling tune, lift it in parts or whole and put in some “Indianness” (Instrumentation, harmonization and beats) – not required these days in the name of fusion(!!!!)- lo and behold, the chart buster is there in front of you.

Is this a new malaise? Is it just the paucity of time that leads people to lift tunes and take a short-cut. Had that been the case, yester year directors should not have to face the problem. A question that has led me to do a bit of research and I came up with interesting observation. The Golden age of Hindi film music had some great plagiarists. And they got away with much of it in the pre-press, pre-internet era as there was not that much awareness about world music. Listen the famous symphonies of Beethoven, Bach, Mozart and you will find quite a few Golden Oldies “buried” in them.

Am not taking any names nor the sources where thy lifted tunes from (Inspiration says many of them). But the list is and everyone from Mozart to Miles (Bangladesh’s band) and everybody in between have their share of woes. Just goes to say that music transcends the barriers of time and space. And I, as an avid listener, would just request the “esteemed” directors to at least acknowledge the originals in their albums. Is it too much of an ask?

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources." Said Elbert Einstein.

Visit this site. They have done an excellent work in finding out the original credit for many a “chartbuster”.(http://www.itwofs.com/)