Of music and lyrics

Before the boom of social media, where the minute movie is launched, comments and review pour in, both in favor and against, about every aspect of the making and presenting, a while back, reviews where restricted to specialist (!) reviewers of media community. Of course some where paid reviews and some were biased, but there was a standard and a template in reviewing movies. The review would cover, performances of the lead pair, comedians, editors to some extent if in case of any new technique and  music director. Along with this list, songs used to occupy a respectable section where the lyrical quality would be reviewed and in specific cases, dissected as a separate article itself!! I vividly remember one article, where they had discussed about how the word “Love” has undergone a transformation in getting representation from lyricists across ages. In one movie the lyricist, guess it was Vaali, mentioned love as a bad word. In another it was being mentioned as a ghost. They became talking point on even some pattimandrams that happened around that time. When Thamarai, the famous lady lyricist, stepped into this song writing arena, her works used to be appreciated and compared against works of her male counterparts. She brought a fresh perspective of a lady while writing songs about heroes and especially for songs on the heroines. Songs even used to be seed money for some movies, where the cassette/CD sales used to partly finance(?) the budget and serve as invitation for more distributors. Nowadays, the trend is that anyone who can rhyme can become lyricist and the lamer the words, funnier the sound, more popular they become. It might’ve all started with “Kolaveri” by Dhanush who was credited as “Poetu” in the titles, that eventually gave him “confidence” to pen more and more songs. Aping his success, every wannabe actor, upcoming and otherwise, directors and anyone who is even remotely connected to movies have become song writers. It has become so worse that even lead heroes request some songs from specific directors or actors, who might’ve hit the jackpot on couple of songs. The silver lining in all this rut being, people are eventually, forcefully as well, are moving away from this concept of songs in movies. With running time struggling to extend beyond 130 minutes, songs are considered as a dead weight, not just due to the lack of quality lyrics but also from fitment and logistics perspective. Pretty soon, we may have movies with no songs and in couple of years it may so happen that, movie songs could be restricted only to musicals like Hollywood. For all the hue and cry about Indian movies having songs at the drop of a hat whereas Hollywood doesn’t, westerners probably has the biggest music industry in the whole world, where hit singles often make instant and forever celebrity of the artists involved. Independent music albums, unrestricted imagination which is not weighed down by shackles of hero worship or situations conceived by someone else, would truly make music lively and more attractive. Considering our rich culture and traditions where music and lyrics are often unmissable and irremovable, rather than aping the west, if our guys try to mine that wealth, our music industry is set for good times ahead.