Mavrix

Why Lootera Is A Better Music Album Than Raanjhanaa

Param — Sun, 02 Jun 2013 13:13:43 +0000

Before I delve into the post, let me state two things:

I’d rather not make comparisons but I saw the albums being compared on social media and was disappointed at how dismissive some people were about Lootera – as if it did not even deserve to be compared with Raanjhanaa! I thought it was important that someone present an alternate view.
This is not a comparison between A.R. Rahman and Amit Trivedi. I have the deepest respect for both and love their music. I completely agree with Amit Trivedi when he says “there can’t be another Rahman”. Based on the music he has made so far, I also believe there can’t be another Amit Trivedi.

Now, on to why I believe Lootera is a better album. The answer to that lies partly in why I like Raanjhanaa less. Many have used words like textured and layered to describe Raanjhanaa’s music and they are right, except that I found Raanjhanaa’s music to be too textured. There is a LOT going on and many of those individual elements are brilliant (like the sitar in Banarasiya and how he’s used the KMMC Sufi Ensemble in Piya Milenge), but put together the music feels cluttered. The whole is less than the sum of parts. For example, Ay Sakhi uses the following percussion instruments – tabla, ghatam/matka, drum sticks, dafli, dhol and maybe others that my ears did not catch. It’s overwhelming and not in a pleasant way. The second issue, I have with Raanjhanaa is a very basic one – except for two or three of songs (my favorite being Tu Mun Shudi), I found the songs “unhummable”. A lot has been said about Rahman defying norms (like not using traditional song structures with mukhda/antara) but it isn’t this that makes his music work. It makes his music interesting and it gives his music that unique ARR character. But, what makes his music really work – for me – is the underlying melody. I found Raanjhanaa’s music lacking in this regard.

On the other hand, I love Lootera because it is a collection of simple and beautiful songs. After Barfi, it’s the first album that I liked after a single listen (although it took a few listens for me to get over Sawar Loon’s percussions). Every song is extremely melodic, the singers do a superb job (Monali Thakur, Amitabh Bhattacharya, Amit Trivedi, K. Mohan, Swanand Kirkire and Shilpa Rao will all count Lootera amongst their best work as singers) and I can easily see myself listening to and humming these songs for years to come. A key strength of the album is it’s no fuss, no frill approach. I am not sure if all great things are simple but Lootera’s music certainly supports the adage.

That said, I encourage everyone to buy both these albums – for both albums deserve to be heard – and form their own opinion. I don’t agree with people who wring their hands and claim that the music today ’s music isn’t as good as it used to be. Every generation says that and that’s nostalgic bullshit. I think we’re lucky to be living in the times of composers like A.R. Rahman and Amit Trivedi. It is a privilege to have both of them release albums within days of each other and it is as good a time as any to be a music lover.

MySwar Updates

Param — Thu, 23 May 2013 09:35:57 +0000

We shipped a few cool updates to MySwar this morning:

Flipkart’s digital music service, Flyte, is now available as a purchase option on the MySwar website. At the album level, you will now see iTunes, Flipkart (for audio CD) and Flyte as options and at the song level iTunes and Flyte. This is subject to availability on iTunes and Flipkart. Currently, we have updated these links for the albums released in 2013 and 2012. We will make links available for the rest of the albums over the next few weeks.
Song previews are now available for Indian users. The previews are sourced from iTunes.
The Advanced Search results page now displays the number of songs.
Ability to Refresh recommendations in the Discover page (logged in users). We also tuned this page to load faster.
Also a number of other improvements and bug fixes.

Hope you like these improvements. Also, if you still haven’t downloaded our mobile app yet, please consider yourself gently nudged to do so. You can find the download links here.

Now Available – MySwar App On iOS and Android

Param — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 12:23:52 +0000

Great news – The MySwar app is now available! A short demo video of the app:

Here are the app store links:

Android - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mavrix.myswar

iOS - https://itunes.apple.com/app/myswar/id622503117?mt=8

Download, enjoy and share!

Non-film Albums Now On MySwar

Param — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 07:33:33 +0000

We now have non-film albums listed on MySwar! We were always very clear that we wanted to include as much Indian music as we could on MySwar and after almost a year of toil, we’re extremely proud to add non-film music albums on MySwar.

Let me start though with a little summary of what we have accomplished so far. Over 2012, we have built-up what’s probably the most comprehensive database of Hindi film music from 1941 to present day. Since we’re not constrained by licensing deals and label provided meta-data, we have been able to list on MySwar detailed credits of every song from every film we have been able to get information about. Also, because our focus has been on accuracy and detail, we have structured our data in a way that lets us catalog song metadata that is a lot more meaningful than the generic Artist ID3 tag that rules the roost everywhere. This is especially significant for Indian film music which is generally attributed separately to music directors (composers), lyricists and singers.

While we’re proud of our work in cataloguing Bollywood music, we know our work is not done. We still keep finding film album releases we have missed and of course, there’s the steady stream of current releases. Also, while Bollywood was a great starting point because of its wide appeal and because it provided us a finite, manageable scope of work, we believe it’s time to broaden our horizon and go beyond Hindi film music.

From a planning perspective, cataloguing Bollywood music was quite simple – Start with each year, find out every film released in that year, determine the songs in those films and get as much information about those albums/songs as we could. Cataloguing non-film music was a lot more difficult to plan because our country has a bewildering array of labels, genres, artists and languages. Where do we start? How do we impose method on this madness? We solved the problem of defining scope by starting with the artists we already had in our database. We added to that list artists and music releases that were contemporarily significant – like Swarathma, Coke Studio, MTV Unplugged, etc. But even this was a huge list, so we had to categorize them in terms of priority. What we have published on MySwar now is just one set of artists and albums from that list.

The other problem we had to grapple with was how we showed information of film and non-film albums and songs. Do we list them separately or together? There were arguments to be made for both, so we said we would do a combination of both AND also let the users decide if they wanted to see one or the other. So here’ how you can see information organized on MySwar:

The Artist page (like Jagjit Singh’s) will have the discography separated by non-film and film albums.
Other than the artist discography pages, every other page will list both film and non-film albums/songs. However, users can use the Filter function (top-right of the listing, see screen shots below) to see only film, or non-film albums and song.
If users want to see both film and non-film albums/song for a given artist together (which they can’t from the Artist page), they can use the Advanced Search feature.

We really hope you enjoy this update. There are some minor kinks we’re working on. If you have any feedback, please do let us know.

Mirchi Music Awards 2012

Param — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 05:40:39 +0000

The popular FM radio channel Radio Mirchi gave out its annual music awards yesterday in a star-studded ceremony. Here is the list of awards:

Song Of The Year – Abhi Mujh Mein Kahin (Agneepath)
Album Of The Year – Agneepath
Mirchi Listener Song Of The Year – Radha (Student Of The Year)
Mirchi Listener Album Of The Year – Student Of The Year
Male Vocalist Of The Year – Sonu Nigam for Abhi Mujh Mein Kahin (Agneepath)
Female Vocalist Of The Year – Shreya Ghoshal for Chikni Chameli (Agneepath)
Music Composer Of The Year – Ajay – Atul for Agneepath
Lyricist Of The Year – Javed Akhtar for Jee Le Zara (Talaash)
Upcoming Male Vocalist Of The Year – Arijit Singh for Duaa (Shanghai)
Upcoming Female Vocalist Of The Year – Neeti Mohan for Jiya Re (Jab Tak Hai Jaan)
Song Of The Year Representing Sufi Tradition – O Saiyyan (Agneepath)
Raag Inspired Song Of The Year – Bolo Na (Chittagong)
Indipop Song Of The Year – Satyamev Jayate (Satyamev Jayate)
Song Recording / Sound Engineering Of The Year – Vijay Dayal for Deva Shree Ganesha (Agneepath)
Programmer & Arranger Of The Year – DJ Phukan, Hyacinth Dsouza for Dil Mera Muft Ka (Agent Vinod)
Background Score Of The Year – Clinton Cerejo for Kahaani
Lifetime Achievement Award – Asha Bhosle
Contribution To 100 Years Of Cinema – Amitabh Bachchan
Contribution To Music – Ameen Sayani
Golden Era Award – Baiju Bawra

As is usual with Bollywood awards, this edition of MMA did meet some criticism (mine included):

While the music of Gangs of Wasseypur wasn’t very popular, music director Sneha Khanwalkar was appreciated for pushing the boundaries of film music by bringing in undiluted folk and electronic elements. GoW has also gathered a niche but strong set of supporters and the fans of the film’s music felt let down that it had not even been nominated for any award
While there was a general sense that some undeserving songs got nominated and eventually won (Radha from Student Of The Year winning the Mirchi Listener Song Of The Year, for instance), this sense was acute for two categories – Raag Inspired Song Of The Year, which had Sajid – Wajid’s “Dagabaaz Re” (“Dabangg 2″, 2012) as a nomination, a song many believe to be “inspired” by “Tumse Izhaar E Haal Kar Baithe” (“Mere Mehboob”, 1963) and the Song Of The Year Representing Sufi Tradition, which had among other nominations, Raabta (Agent Vinod), a nice enough song but representing Sufi tradition?
There is lack of clarity on who receives some of these awards, like song/album of the year awards.

You can find the complete list of Mirchi Music Awards as well as other music awards for the last few years on MySwar.

2012 Bollywood Music Review

admin — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 06:38:11 +0000

MySwar has a lot of data on Bollywood music over 2012 and we thought it would be fun to see what the data told us. So here goes:

Number of film music albums released: 123

Number of songs: 843

Artists who passed away in 2012: Mehdi Hassan, Ravi, Pandit Ravi Shankar, Anil Mohile, Shahryar

Notable debuts:

Music director: Arko Pravo Mukherjee, Gajendra Verma, G.V. Prakash Kumar
Lyricist: Varun Grover
Female singer: Sanam Marvi, Shakthisree Gopalan, Shalmali Kholgade
Male singer: Ayushmann Khurana, Nikhil Paul George, Prem Dehati, Javed Bashir, Yo Yo Honey Singh, Devendra Singh

Most prolific composers:

Sajid – Wajid – 10 films, 63 songs
Pritam – 7 films, 53 songs
Himesh Reshammiya – 5 films, 46 songs

Most prolific lyricists:

Sameer – 14 films, 52 songs
Shabbir Ahmed – 12 films, 46 songs
Kumaar – 12 films, 35 songs

Most prolific female singers:

Shreya Ghoshal – 70 songs
Sunidhi Chauhan – 55 songs
Mamta Sharma – 20 songs

Most prolific male singers:

Shaan – 30 songs
Sukhwinder Singh – 27 songs
Mika Singh – 25 songs

Best artists based on a combination of ratings and number of well-rated songs in 2012:

Best Music Directors:

Best Lyricists:

Best Female Singers:

Best Male Singers:

A Look Back At 2012

Param — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 12:45:52 +0000

When we put our head down to crank out work, it’s hard to get a sense of what we are actually accomplishing. That happens only when we look back and assess what we delivered. I just did that and am filled with a sense of deep satisfaction and pride at what we delivered on MySwar.com. A quick round-up:

January: We launched MySwar.com after a few weeks of private beta with albums/songs from 1971 to present day.

February: Albums/songs for 1960s, categorized search suggestions, advanced search, ability to browse award-winning films, songs and artists in once place and the trivia of the day feature.

March: Albums/songs for 1950s.

May: YouTube embeds, forgiving searches, listing of popular songs for artists.

June: Listing of popular songs by year and genre.

August: Pre-packaged playlists of all kinds. Artist listings in once place even if they have been credited under different names.

October: Ability to sort in song and album listings.

November: Filters on album and song listings.

December: 1940s albums and songs.

We’re already working on many other amazing updates, so 2013 will be just as exciting if not more. Thanks for your support and encouragement this far and stay tuned!

1940s Hindi Films Albums Now Listed On MySwar

Param — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 10:23:10 +0000

When we launched MySwar.com late last year, we had Hindi film music listings for four decades, from 1971 to the present. Since then we have added three more decades – the 1960s, the 1950s and yesterday, the 1940s. We now have information on seven decades of Hindi film music in one place.

1940s was a significant period in Hindi film music. The legendary singer, K.L. Saigal’s death in 1947 and India’s independence and Partition effected a change of guard of sorts in Hindi film music. With K.L. Saigal’s passing away, the tragic hero persona, that was pervasive in the music of that time, faded away and male singers, on whom Saigal had cast a long shadow, developed their own singing styles. Noor Jehan’s migration to Pakistan, following the Partition, paved the path for Lata Mangeshkar’s meteoric rise as the premier female singer in Hindi films for decades to come. There was an infusion of new talent and the decade saw the debut and rise of singers like Shamshad Begum, Lata Mangeshkar, Geeta Dutt, Asha Bhosle, Mohammed Rafi, Kishore Kumar, Mukesh and Manna Dey; music directors like Khemchand Prakash, Naushad, C. Ramchandra, S.D. Burman and Shankar – Jaikishan; and lyricists like Majrooh Sultanpuri, Shakeel Badayuni, Sahir Ludhianvi and Shailendra. Film music became a melting pot of a variety of musical influences. In the 40s, it absorbed folk and classical music influences and started developing the unique, multi-faceted character that defines Bollywood music today.

Back to the update – while the film/song listings for the 1940s are up on MySwar, we haven’t updated the song genres and YouTube embeds. This will take some time. Tracing the actual songs (audio and video) is more and more difficult as we go back in the past. If you have the time and inclination, you can help us by submitting high-quality (relatively speaking) YouTube URLs on MySwar (register, login, go to the song page and click Update in the Video section).

The Beatles In Bollywood

Param — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 06:35:14 +0000

Some time ago, I wrote a post on the influence of Indian music on The Beatles. Many people landed on that post looking for The Beatles’ influence on Indian music, so I thought it was time to do a round-up of The Beatles in Bollywood:

Dekho Ab Toh (Janwar, 1965) – Not only is the song a rip-off of The Beatles’ I Want To Hold Your Hand, it also has Shammi Kapoor and four other actors cloning the band’s haircut.

Dil Se Kya Sahi (Imaan, 1974) – In this R.D. Burman song, the line “Aaj Jhoomen Zara…” is an adaptation of the line “I Once Had A Girl…” from Norwegian Wood.

Humne Kabhi Socha Nahi (Jeevan Mukt, 1977) – R.D. Burman was perhaps fascinated by Norwegian Wood. After using the tune in Dil Se Kya Sahi, he used it again in Humne Kabhi Socha Nahi.

Dil Usse Do Jo Jaan De De (Andaz, 1971) – This song uses the tune of the line “What Would You Do If I Sang Out Of Tune….” from A Little Help From My Friends.

Hum Jab Honge Saath Saal Ke (Kal Aaj Aur Kal, 1971) – While the tune of the song itself is original, the lyrics are likely inspired by The Beatles’ “When I Am Sixty Four”.

Do you know of any other Beatles’ influence in Bollywood?

The Top 100 Bollywood Songs Of 2012

Param — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 10:08:27 +0000

For the complete listing of songs with a rating of 3 and higher (on a scale of 5), go to the popular song listing for 2012 on MySwar.

Also check out the playlist of randomly-picked well-rated songs of 2012. (Note: Click Shuffle to refresh the playlist.)

And now, for the Top 100 Bollywood songs of 2012:

This listing is as of the time of posting. I’ll update this post once a week for the next two weeks. If you disagree with this list, make your voice heard by registering and rating on MySwar.com.

[Update: Final ranking as of Jan 8, 2013]