There is no dearth of talent in a country as vast as India with diverse cultures and rich musical heritage. And there is no doubt our regional film music is being produced by some of the best talent available in India. But hey! Can we make a judgment on Indian musical talent taking only our regional film music and Indipop into consideration? The answer is NO.
The Indian film music industry consists of geniuses like Ilayaraaja, Rahman, Burmans etc on one hand and numerous other so-called’music directors’ on the other hand who churn out junk music from their cheap studios catering to the low budget movies. The latter are mostly copycats who’cut-and-paste’ popular and international contemporary music to their computer music software and mix their awkward music bits into them!
What’s not known to much of the film music audience is that there is a lot more of musical talent in India which is NOT into commercial and Indian film music but into rock, rock’n’ roll, metal et al. There are at least 40-50 such music bands or even more in India with hundreds of talented musicians dedicated to their own genre of music. These are mostly the younger generation musicians catering only to select audience. What needs to be lauded is their spirit of commitment to their own genre of music despite insufficient audience in India and lack of funds for promotion of their music. It is a pity many such musicians eventually fade out into the dark realizing they cannot make a living out of their brand of music in India.
I have always wondered why such bands never bothered to sing in our regional languages. I have even argued in a popular forum about this. Well, there might be genuine reasons for singing in English and not singing in a regional language. But the fact remains that many genres of music produced by Indian music bands and budding artists never reach the masses.
Does anyone see a point here?