Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Radioandmusic.com interview

"Do you think the contribution a lyricist makes often gets overshadowed?
Sadly, yes. We are the backroom boys whose names will not be read out on the FM stations, who will barely get any royalties, Most people don't even know who wrote a certain song because unlike earlier, radio stations don't feel the need to mention their names. Heck -- even most singers often don't know whose song they are singing!

Often lyrics are written to fit tunes, doesn't that kill creativity, inspiration?
It's a challenge, but very satisfying when one pulls it off. But there interesting changes on that front as well, and one sees music directors often asking lyricists to write first, which is then composed later. That is a very encouraging sign.

What kind of trends do you observe, there was a time when Bhojpuri lyrics where catching on.
I think we are often are a bit too quick to try and catch trends. The only trend is that there are at all times some good lyrics and some bad lyrics!

Read the full interview by Chirag Sutar here.

2 comments:

editor said...

Janaab Nilesh Sahab,

Your blog is interesting, of course, slightly less than your stories in paper which are immensely readable.

However, I have trouble in reading due to the dark (black) background, which is taxing for eyes.

baaqi sab umda hai...

sushant jha said...

Good point Nilesh, this is really unfortunate that lyricist dont get the credit these day and only the name of singer or music director comes in light. But one thing i would like to say that except some lyricist, especially in 80s and 90s we didn't notice good lyrics in chunk.What we found that it was just a simple 'tukbandi' and not the type which once Indiver, Sahir or Shakil used to write. In those songs one can enjoy the feel of Shayri at a same time and those songs deeply got imprinted in our collective psyche.Though, we have still good lyricist like Guljar, Javed Akhtar and some new comers but in general we miss good songs and it is only music that sells through.But i agree to your point that there must be credit to lyricists.

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