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Pop goes the album
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Gen Next continues to experiment with Tamil Pop. Though technology makes it simpler, finding a market is still difficult, says SUDHISH KAMATH
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WILLING TO EXPERIMENT Harish Raghavendra and Devan Ekambaram and (below) The band members of Encore
Some started out as bathroom singers. And then a little help from bedroom composers on their personal computers, they come up with a scratch. Soon, a number is born. It makes its way to a studio, and if lucky, finds a video and a label and then into the shelves at a music store. And then it's a long wait for these pop stars to get that song from their head out into that music system in your living room. It is difficult, not impossible, as the brave new generation demonstrates.
Five engineering students, Krishna, Jaghadhish, Karthik, Katz and Bharat, who call themselves Encore found a record label in Saregama for their debut album "Thee" launched recently.
The boy band
"What Rang De Basanti and Yuva are to Lok Paritran is what Boys is to Encore," says Bharat, singer and one of the key members of the boy band. "Though there are some similarities to Shankar's Boys — five guys, students, middle class, Madras, music — we have nothing to do with the movie. We've been a band even before discussions for the movie started and the idea of an album was mooted. We were working on it by the time the movie released." The movie came and went, so did Shankar's next movie before the boys got their album out, after college ate into production time.
Popular Tamil film singers Devan Ekambaram and Harish Raghavendra took two years before they got their album "Mudhal Mazhaiye" out under the Desi Beats label launched by Madhav Das (ex-director of Magnasound) and found a sponsor in Sona Sounds.
"I started out composing some rough tunes and asked Harish to just come over and write some dummy lyrics. After which they actually sounded good so we decided to go ahead and complete eight songs," says Devan.
The albums, just like their names, are as different as fire and first rain. While Devan's compositions are light experiments with the pop genre, "Thee" is fiery mix, almost like film music.
"Growing up listening to Tamil film music, we were not stuck with a particular genre and were willing to experiment with different styles of music. The result was a hodgepodge of rock, rock and roll, folk, fusion and plain old melody numbers," says Bharat.
The younger generation surely knows to help each other out. While Encore got Devan apart from Ranjith, Chinmayi, Prasanna, Malgudi Subha, Manicka Vinayagam, Tippu and KK among others to sing for them, Devan and Harish roped in Mahalakshmi Iyer for a couple of duets.
"We had lots of ups and downs in the making as we both went into acting at one point and got busy with concert touring as well. We collaborated with the best musicians," says Devan. While Devan and Harish even managed to shoot videos for five of the songs, thanks to Ravi Menon of Limelight Productions and their sponsors, Bovonto, Old Secret, Chennai Corporate Club, GR Damadoran College of Commerce, Encore is still on the lookout for help for the videos.
"We cannot afford to shoot videos. We spent all we had on bringing out the music," says Bharat. "After seeing our improvisations during the jamming sessions and on-stage, our mentor Prabhu suggested `Why don't you guys make your own compositions?' Though we laughed it off at that moment, the thought was somewhere there. But in the end, it was a conscious decision to make it filmi," says Bharat, admitting that the guys came up with the tracks in the strangest of places, sometimes in the bathroom, sometimes on the bike.
Distinct sound
The seniors have shown the way. Pravin Mani put his own money into his album with Manicka Vinayagam for "Ai Mama" and got videos shot. Five years ago, Srinivas had teamed up with Rajiv Menon for "Ussele Ussele". Guitarist Prasanna thinks it is important for musicians to develop a distinct sound, derived from local influences: "You need to do your own thing. You need to think of pop music on its own terms. Not as an alternative to film. We should be able to evolve sub-genres of music from India. You have to tap into what we have. Unless you play live music, you are not going to reach people. You have to go into the studio as a band and record it live. When musicians sit together and make music, there's some magic to it."
Bharat agrees but not entirely. "`Thee' had the drawbacks of sounding close to music made for a movie, but the response has been good nonetheless. It was more about how the end product sounded rather than our participation. We did not want to compromise on that. Technology is overwhelming, even in music. Live concerts and recording are two different ball games altogether. There had to be variety, even in the instruments being used."
The band, hence, used varied instruments from the prehistoric conch to the Persian oud, nagaswaram, ethnic percussion and the sitar. "Karthik and Jaghadhish were trained western classical keyboardists, Katz was a self-taught guitarist, Krishna, an enthusiastic percussionist, and I was just a bathroom singer but if there was a single most important thing that made this possible, it would be the freedom that our parents gave us during the making," says Bharat.
Virtual market
There are many other artistes waiting to do something radical, original and straight from the heart but there are no record labels around to promote anything remotely experimental. Chennai-based rapper Blaaze recalls the challenges in bringing out his experimental non-film album "Zambezifunk" because it was not in Hindi. With MP3s and possibilities of selling music over the Net (Prasanna sells his music through his website www.guitarprasanna.com) , all the world will be a virtual market with branches all over cyberspace.
But like Blaaze says: "There is nothing like the feeling of walking up to the music store, seeing your album there and watch people picking it up. If I write a song for the people on the street, I want that album to reach the people on the street."
It's that desire that keeps them going, that feeling that stops them from quitting.
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