Entertainment

Bollywood songs are very repetitive: Raghav Sachar

by IBNS/Trans World Features 08 Jul 2016, 05:57 am

By his own admission, Raghav Sachar is a composer who loves to sing. While promoting his upcoming movie, Akshay Kumar-starrer Rustom, IBNS-TWF correspondent Sudipto Maity finds out the state of Bollywood music from Raghav alongside things that anger him the most and why Bollywood lacks discipline.

How many songs have you composed for Rustom?

I have done the title track for the film called Rustom Wahi.


Who has sung it?

It’s sung by Sukriti Kakkar. It’s a female song.

 
Raghav please share your experience about working with the other three music directors.

Actually we have independently done songs. Not really worked together. We are friends of course, but we have not worked together on any song typically.


Having seen their work, do you think your style differs from theirs?

My style differs from mostly everybody (laughs), because I use a lot of live instrumentation. I play multiple instruments myself, so there’s a lot of difference in what I end up doing. You can automatically identify ki ye gaana maine banaya hai, ek joh typical chaap hoti hai. Salim-Sulaiman have it, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy have it, Rahman saab has it. There’s a typical Raghav Sachar thing about it.

 
Do you think Rustom will be a game changer for you?

I think it’s going to be a very interesting film to come out at this time, because it’s been a while since I have done something, some film music and something that I really personally prefer doing. If you have seen the song Hug Me, which is from Baimaan Love, it is a very interesting dance number, but again it has a twist, it has a lot of musicality in it. It’s just not beating around the bush and creating this noise around it. Beside that, Rustom song,  is like a thriller song. After a long time there will be a song which is clutter breaking sound than whatever else is happening currently. All you are hearing is romantic songs and party songs.

Coming to that point, do you think Bollywood songs are getting repetitive?

It’s very repetitive and it’s very type-casted, that’s also purely because people who are not musical are taking calls for music. It used to be the director, who had vision for the music, who would take a call with the musicians and the music director would create it. Now there are so many people involved that it becomes a "khichdi". The songs are hurt at the end of the day.


Keeping that in mind, how would you rate Akshay Kumar, the hero of Rustom featured in your song? Is he musically sound?

I think he’s phenomenal and his brief was very kadak and to the point. I met him once and he explained it. He spent a lot of time with me and very sweetly he explained to me about what he is looking at. He is presented in that song, so he briefed me about the kind of energy needed. When I presented him the song, he loved it instantaneously.

 
We have heard you sing and you compositions as well, so what are you more comfortable with, a singer who composes or a composer who sings?

I have always been a composer. Singing is something that has happened very late for me. I’m a multi instrumentalist to start off with and then a composer and then a singer.

 
What’s your favourite instrument?

My mostly used instruments are the saxophone and flute. You’ll usually find me playing a flute or a saxophone.

 
Who’s your favourite music director and why?

RD Burman saab, by far. Because of his futuristic thinking and even Rahman saab, of course. He’s a living legend. He’s a dear friend and I perform a lot with him.


Raghav, while the concept of singles is a big hit in the West, why didn’t it work in India?

There’s a large reason for that. There’s a clear cut distinguishing factor between Bollywood and Hollywood or say the west. The west basically has pop stars, pop icons, like Beyonce, Justin Timberlake, (Justin) Bieber. Here I’m a pop star essentially but I have gotten into music direction and films because pop is dead. More than anything else, Bollywood so to say uses songs as a major selling point and a major marketing tool. Internationally, Hollywood films don’t have songs at all. They only have scores. Songs are an essential thing for Indian movies and at the end of the day if you see, this is a bigger market than what that is. However, in Hollywood  because artists are doing singles, artists are much bigger than films. Films and actors are much lower than what these people are. Bollywood is completely different. It’s always the actor first and then everybody else.


Do you think that’s the reason why Indie music is suffering a lot in India?

Indie music is next to nothing literally. There used to be a time when pop music was differentiated very clearly. You know, when Daler Mehndi saab was there, doing his thing. Alisha Chinai, Lucky Ali, and even when I had come there used to be a proper differentiation between pop and Bollywood. You could differentiate ki yahan pe tabla dholak baaj raha hain, toh yahan pe Bollywood ka hain, yahan pe kuch naya sound use ho raha hai to yeh pop ka hoga, but, ab sab kuch hum log e ghush gaya hoon. There is Adnan (Sami) , me, Salim-Sulaiman, Shankar (Mahadevan). We are all pop stars who have essentially come and become music directors.


Do you think regional movies are way ahead than Bollywood in terms of sound?

I think south has a lot of phenomenal sounds going on. Even Bengal. But south Indians have really cracked it.

 
What do you think is working in their favour?

I think the strictness in the way they work and the particular protocol that they follow is something that is a must.

 
Are you saying that Bollywood lacks discipline?

Majorly. Bollywood lacks discipline because anybody at anytime can come in Bollywood and scrap a song, and that decision should only lie with the director of a film. Nobody literally, not even the actor should have the authority to say okay I don’t want this, I want that. So, there is a lot of difference, but it’s the rule of the land now. It’s become like that and we are playing by that. There is no option. Otherwise you would not get anything. You have to change with time and you have to change with trends.

 
The other annoying trend which I find is the random remixing of old classics. Are you for it?

I love recreations, but remixing them randomly without adding any flavor to them, without offering anything new is useless. As an artist you have to give something else. Remixing is essentially done by DJ’s and they aren’t musicians. DJ’s are people who are trying to mix two songs together and they are more like engineers rather than musicians. There’s a huge difference in that and a musician recreating a song will do it in a very innovative way and tasteful manner and a remixer or a DJ probably, not all DJ’s though, but somebody who does not have the right knowledge for chord progression or musical knowledge, will not be able to do justice to the song.           

         
Do you plan  to take up acting as a career?

I really don’t mind doing them, because I love being on screen. If you have seen my music videos you can see that already. I enjoy that, but I don’t want to do something which is not my character. I’m not an actor who can be dressed in a dhoti and blend in a village ambience, I’ll not pass off like that and I’ll not be able to pull that off also. I want to stay within the confines of what I can do well. If there’s a film like Rockstar, I would love to play something like that.

 
Are we going to see Raghav Sachar scoring for a Bengali film or any regional movies in the near future?

I would love to. Whoever’s reading this, please call me. I would love to come and do it. I love regional music.

Tell us something about your Kolkata connection.

Well, Kolkata has been a fabulous place for me every time. Music lovers are in enormous amount and I love that about the city and I feel that I’m talking to intelligent audience and that is a big deal in today’s time. I’m doing something with Rabindrasangeet now. I really love that kind of music and I’m hopeful that people will appreciate with what I’m coming up next.