Amit Trivedi: Rehashes demanded by producers

Amit Trivedi

Music composer Amit Trivedi says no Bollywood music director or singer he knows, likes recreating old songs, but has to compromise owing to the pressure from film producers and big labels. The trend of rehashing old film numbers has caught up fast with Bollywood music directors. Trivedi, known for giving music to Dev D (2009), Bombay Velvet (2015), Queen (2014) and Lootera (2013), calls the growing trend a step down as he does not feel it is plausible to touch a song, which was once "someone else's vision".

He said, "For creators, especially for me as a composer, it is sad. It is not exciting that we have to create something that someone else has already done before. It is someone else's baby, which we would not like to touch, because at that time it was that person's vision. It is difficult to do in a film format."

Trivedi added, "The pressure is only from the producers and the labels. No composer, no singer would ever want to sing a remix. I don't know about others, but there are definitely a lot of people, I know, who don't want to do someone else's songs in films. It's the producers and the labels' pressure that we are catering to. Because we are a part of that [the system], we have to do that job. You should all ask this question to them as to why are they doing it."

Trivedi was speaking at the launch of a web reality show, The Remix, which has him as one of the judges. He said that for a show like this, the concept of re-creation works well as the musicians put in an effort to add their flavour to the original composition and turn it around. "The show is about remixes. So, it works beautifully and fantastically well here. But for films, if you ask me, it is sad," he added.

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