Shantanu Moitra

Between Dhoom macha le and Piyu bole, there have been more downloads of ring and caller tones than the combined count of many musical blockbusters. Between Dhoom and Parineeta, there have been more album sales than the soundtracks produced by the more illustrious veterans in the industry. Between Pritam Chakraborty and Shantanu Moitra, there lies the future of Bollywood music, which has been trying to break out from the state of torpor it has sunk into.

Pritam Chakraborty

Where the two Bengalis have got their act spot on is by understanding at the very outset exactly where their peers have gone wrong. ?Listeners have got bored with an overdose of technology in everything, from orchestration to arrangement to beats,? says Shantanu. ?People just want to hear some good words and nice music. Music directors have been taking the listeners for granted for quite some time now and they had every right to rebel by not buying film music soundtracks. You can?t keep producing ?music that sells? and hope that it will sell.?

Pritam feels it is the cycle that has brought about the change in listening patterns. ?Nothing can exist for a long time,? he feels. ?In the 80s, it was the Bappi Lahiri swing with all those Jeetendra films working. Then films like Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak and Aashiqui came in with fresh stuff. It was not just a coincidence that the Laxmikant-Pyarelal duo would change their orchestration set-up every 10 years. Even the language of cinema has changed today? so the music has to change, too.?

To counter the changing tastes of music listeners across the country, Shantanu fell back to his advertising fundas. ?We call it brand positioning in the world of advertising,? he reveals. ?To place your product completely differently from the heap that is being produced... that?s what we did with Parineeta. I didn?t want to produce something that was ?in?, because that would have been out soon. Who remembers which song was at number one in the countdown two months back? But Ab ke saawan still plays whenever it rains. We were looking at that extended shelf life for the film?s songs.?

It was a different game plan that Pritam had for Dhoom. ?I wanted the songs to match international standards of music. I wanted my song to be hummed by a kid sitting in Birmingham. And that?s what Dhoom macha le did. It was on the Japanese countdown for weeks. International acceptance is a very big factor these days when you know that your music has to compete with the likes of Raghav, Dr. Zeuss, Juggy D, all of whom are technically far superior than us.?

Saif Ali Khan and Vidya Balan in Parineeta

With period assignments on hand, Shantanu had to fall back on sheer melody. ?Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi was a bigger success to me than Parineeta,? he says. ?Here was a soundtrack which was put in the market without any promotion or marketing. In fact, the music had to be re-released after people saw the film and made repeated enquiries about Baawra mann. There is a dictum in the film industry: make music that rickshawwallahs and paanwallahs would like. Well, having actually spent time with them, I know that they still listen to the Rafis and Mukeshs on radio. Melody always rules.?

But the real challenge for both Shantanu and Pritam starts now. While all Pritam is being offered are action films a la Dhoom, Shantanu is being labelled as just an expert in romantic numbers a la Piyu bole. ?It doesn?t take much time to be branded in this industry and we have to live with that,? says Pritam. ?The real fact is that I am capable of composing better love songs than item numbers. But I am getting to do only action films where songs just do not belong to the script. Even in Dhoom, music was just like a feeler. Now in Chocolate, they are deleting my songs to make the film shorter in length. Music in these kinds of movies is the last priority.?

Abhishek Bachchan and Rimii Sen in a moment from Dhoom

Shantanu is ready for the big fight having taken up the music assignments of a tapori film like Munnabhai Meets Mahatma Gandhi and the background soundtrack for the songless Yagna. ?Advertising teaches you to mould yourself like a product,? he explains.

?So, there I was doing a film like Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi set in the emergency period, a Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay classic like Parineeta, a contemporary love story set in Kashmir like Yahaan and now, Munnabhai MMG, whose music is completely in sync with the profile of Munnabhai. Yagna, again, has to have a very strong Rajasthani flavour, being set in the havelis of Jodhpur and Jaipur.?

So while Shantanu waits to be lauded for his versatility, Pritam hopes that he does not have to keep fighting against himself. ?They are still coming and asking for Dhoom music from me. That also makes the soundtrack of Dhoom 2 a very tricky job for me. Whatever work has been done on its music has been qualitatively better than Dhoom, but comparisons may hit the new soundtrack badly. It will be very difficult to match Dhoom macha le, not for its quality but for its sheer popularity.?