Asha Bhosle has publicly expressed her disappoinment over the state of playback singing in Bollywood. However, she is not alone. Maestros like Jagjit Singh are also talking in the same tone.
This is despite the fact that most of the songs over which questions are being raised have hit the charts for many successive weeks and even won awards.
"Earlier music directors themselves had good knowledge of classical music and would spend months on a single composition. The lyricists were themselves poets of great repute. But the whole scene has changed," rues melody queen Asha Bhonsle.
"Music directors like RD Burman would all the time think of tunes and thought ahead of his time. Recently when I went to Los Angeles for recording, American technical directors were amused at the quality of Pancham's music... It is difficult to find such passionate music directors now," says Bhonsle.
"Playback singing has no relevance in Hindi films these days. You will hardly find any situational song in movies. There is no variety of emotions like sad, romantic or comedy," feels Ghazal king Jagjit Singh.
"Items songs are very much in demand and they have no relevance to the story line," he says.
{{/usCountry}}"Items songs are very much in demand and they have no relevance to the story line," he says.
{{/usCountry}}"The role of a music director has been taken over by computers. Every node is pre-set on the computer... There is very little communication between him and the singer," says Narayan.
The singers also expressed disappointment at the new-age item numbers. "Item numbers have been there in old movies also and we hold nothing against them, but they should not be vulgar and must be linked to the storyline," says Singh adding "Kajra Re is also an item song, but it is very well written by Gulzar and also has a folk base."