Javed Akhtar feels the music in contemporary Indian cinema is no longer sympathetic to lyrics
Javed Akhtar
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Eminent lyricist, poet and screenwriter Javed Akhtar feels the music in contemporary Indian cinema is no longer sympathetic to lyrics, and the tunes -- often high on tempo -- are not conducive for good poetry.
In a freewheeling interview with IANS, the Padma Bhushan awardee dwelt on his self-discovering journey as a poet, talked about issues like increasing hostility against freedom of expression in India and society's influence in changing cinema.
"I am very unhappy with the present music scenario in Bollywood. The music that is being produced is not very sympathetic to lyrics anymore. First of all, they do not get good situations because there is more razzmatazz than emotional depth in the stories. So the situation for songs is not very emotional," said Akthar, who was in the city to attend the Tata Steel Kolkata Literary Meet.
"Besides, the tunes the writers are getting today are not very conducive to writing poetry because of the tempo and the orchestration. The tempo is such that the words do not get established. They do not have the space to breathe."
"On the other hand, the music is so loud... every song is treated like a clap song. So the percussion is often above the voice and the music gets ahead of words. So you just can't understand what the person is singing. May be you only know the 'Mukhra' (beginning of a song) and the rest of it gets lost in the cacophony," the septuagenarian said.
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