Lately I have been listening to Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam songs because of the movies I have been watching. I came across a Tamil or Telegu (I haven’t been able to differentiate between the two languages yet) song sung by Shreya Ghoshal, her voice does have that estacy that takes you to a melodious trance. But, the song she was singing, something was lacking. That accent of a native speaker, which isn’t acquired just by singing the songs in the language or knowing the language in conversational capacity. This reminds me various established Bollywood singers like Arijit Singh, Mohit Chauhan, Shaan, Sonu Nigam, Sunidhi Chauhan, etc singing in regional languages like Bengali, Gujarati, Malayalam, Tamil, and, Telugu. Immediately, India’s recent famous phrase comes to my mind, vocal for local.
Why would the people producing the music in regional language want to collaborate with established Bollywood singers and bear their high cost and tantrums in the process, when they have beautiful talent in their own locality. In a speedy need of creating only viral songs with more channels to sell their music it is more natural for the music composers to work with established singers of different language to attract their loyal fans. It is similar to a growing business, after we have acquired local market, we move to neighboring market. But here, are the loyal fans listening to the music?
We have been consuming the music that we have been served. Some songs catch attention of the audience very fast and some take time. There are many players in the market, many mediums of accessing music, that the audience just consumes what ever is provided to them complaining about lack of good quality of songs lately. Songs sung by singers with no native language skills would make it difficult for the audience to connect with, sending the vibes of an outsider singing the song. We know that we would only listen to that particular song sung by our favorite singers in any other language and might not continue exploring the music of that language. It is not like the established singers would be the introducing factor to the music of other languages. I am nor against the growth of the market of the established singers, I am more for using the local talent more than having to import them. It would save so much of cost, efforts and time if the following questions are answered before any external resources are acquired for making the song,
– Does having established singers of different languages increases the reach of the song?
– Do these singers bring their audience along with them? Do these audience stay?
– Do we not have best alternative talent with native language skills locally?
Aarzoo 