In the first post I would like to write something about Pritam's( Pritam Chakraborty) music.According to IMDB he has done music for 59 films so far (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1338587/) and around 61 according to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pritam). The list of his projects is increasing day by day.
Pritam is continously churning out chart busters with famous hits being ( Love Aaj Kal, New york, Tum Mile,Dil bole Haddipa,Billu,Golmaal,Singh is King,Kismat connection,Race,Jannat,Jab we met,Awarapn,Life in a Metro,Dhoom 2,Woh lamhe,Pyar ke side effects,Gangster,Garam Masala,Dhoom,Mere yaar kee shadi hai and so on.....).
Today most of us are well aware of the reasons why he has become such a phenomenon( Plagiarism) .But on the other hand most of us listen to his music in discos,parties ( I just went to a Dandia function few days back and most of the songs played while dancing were his),cars,home or anywhere.
If you have ever been to this website( http://www.itwofs.com/hindi-pritam.html) ,you will find a huge list of the songs he has taken either inspiration from or entirely copied.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9yk2ucyHjE&feature=related ( A recent link on his "Copying " vs "Inspiration" )
Another interesting link ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-qgrg6LUOM)
This issue was also discussed by Karan Thapar ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_cpKFQ0hjE&feature=related)
Ismail Darbar ,another famous Bollywood composer openly insulted Pritam ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQ5dwhqt2UE) for being a copy cat.
Rajiv Masand ,famous film critic also interviewed A R Rahman on this issue
( The Conversation:
"Rajeev Masand: Do you find that we are too lenient as a society? Why are we so indifferent about plagiarism? Look at Pritam’s track record lately. Look at Race, Jab We Met, Metro. Almost all his track records can be traced to either a Korean hit or another Hindi film song or a foreign song. Why are we so lenient as a society as far as plagiarism is concerned?
AR Rahman: It is not just one person. There are a number of people. It’s also how the industry has forced people to do that.
Rajeev Masand: Do you actually believe that?
AR Rahman: I think now people are in a position to say no that I can’t do that. They will be respected even more when they do that. I think that it is what each composer needs to do when he is forced and told that some song is needed. So, one should maintain one’s integrity. If someone wants a particular song without courtesy, then the composer should refuse and say he doesn’t want to steal the song. Else most of them will land up paying a lot of money from their pockets as an out of court settlement. " )
(Source: http://ibnlive.in.com/news/i-dont-think-remix-is-a-bad-word-ar-rahman/66365-8-single.html)
The point is that Pritam is alone not responsible for what he is discredited and criticized for.Even I myself have critized him so many times but soon I relaized that there several other reasons and not him alone.
Pritam to me is an intelligent and calm person who inspite of being criticized so much and dis respected keeps on doing his work and keeps on churning chart busters.
Pritam has certain qualities which makes him keep on going inspite of the criticism.
1.He is a very sweet,calm and composed person by nature.Any critcism what so ever does not lets him down. He responds very peacefully to all the criticism.Other composers like Annu Malik have been seen to be agitated easily due to these aligations in many of the interviews.
2.Currently he has been abe to get a lot of projects under the Yash Raj film banner and the Bhatt film camp .With such big banners there is no dearth of films for him.He has managed to give chart busters for their fims and has a strong backing from two of the biggest film production houses.Why would Yash Raj banner or Bhat camp want to loose when he can make their films popular through his chart busters ? I also still not understand why they use Pritam for composing music for their films quite regularly.
3. Though there are several instances of his copying or inspiring tunes( http://www.itwofs.com/hindi-pritam.html) he is clever enough to use the tunes in such a way that people often do not recognize it in the first instant unless some Freaks go on researching from where it is copied.
For example I got to know that "Yeh Junnon " from New york is copied from" Nalluri Lelaki " from an Indonesian Band Samsons. I had to ask my Indonesain house mate about this band who also got shocked when he listened the song from New york.
10 -15 years ago Indian music composer used to copy western tunes without thianking that there might be large number of people who migh have listened to those songs.( Eg Annu Malik copying Maccrina or Rajesh Roshan , Conquest of Paradise by Vangelis for Koyla).Anyone could recognize the source in a minute.
Now Pritam chose a lot of Indonesian,Korean and similar East Asian nations ,Turkish and other middle east sources which most Indian people hardly listen to instead of composers before him.Thanks to some people like owners of ( http://www.itwofs.com/) who brought about these issues into mainstream media.
Pritam thus is quite clever in chosing his sources and copying or inspiring from them and this makes him churning chart busters.
4.Pritam has a great sense of "packaging". By packaging I mean the way he presents his music.If you hear any of his chartbuster number it immediately gets on your mind and you start humming or dancing on it.He exactly knows how to present a song and target the audience in the right way.In other way he has great commercial sense.This is quite opposite of Rahman's music where the songs actually take time to grow on you.But once they grow you reach a different state of mind.
5.Pritam has also been accused quite often of taking short cuts to churn chart busters.His approach for composing music is perhaps quite fast( You can see that in 2009 he has around 21 projects http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pritam). Now do you think it is realistically possible to do so many projects in such a short period of time ?
But for Pritam I suppose it is possible.This has also made him favourite among Yash Raj banner and Bhatt camp and they still prefer him for composing for their films. His approach ( Just using a simple Guitar melody) is also quite simple.He uses a simple technique to show his compositions to the Directors and producers and works according to their wish.
This is contrary of A R Rahman ,the best current hndi film music composer who likes to work on his terms and conditions and uses a complicated technique of composing and producing music which may not be liked by many directors and producers.
6.Hindi film music Industry has taken on a very commercial approach. There is a tendency to recoer the money put in due to the high budgets. Many producers and directors also do want to play safe and restirct composers from trying something new. Producers many times as told by A R Rahman in one of his interviews add "TEMP " music to the films or restrict the composers to composing their kind of music.The average time which a composer gets is also reducing.Hence it becomes difficult for Hindi film music composers to create original music many times due to this pressure and hence the copying and inspiration takes place.
7.Last composers like Pritam also take advantage of the weak IPR(Intellectual property) laws in India.Composers like ARR have tried to bring in some of these measures in the Indian film industry but currently the laws are not strict.
To end with Pritam inspite of the criticims,allegations keeps on going and these may be the possible reasons for that....I am not here to support him but to discuss other side of the issue which often are not discussed....
I hope people still enjoy this post even when it is quite lengthy
Best Wishes
Suyash
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