Response to Jason Overdorf in GlobalPost

(Note from the future: GlobalPost where the Overdorf piece originally appeared, seems to have rebranded as The World.)

Once again, Jason Overdorf has decided to insert his bias against Bollywood into an article about Indian culture. Not content with making up facts about how indie film Kaminey is not only the biggest hit of the year but it is also the new face of Bollywood and that the sold-as-just-like-Hollywood film Chandi Chowk to China was a by-the-books masala piece, Mr. Overdorf has expanded into mocking the Indian music industry because it is not shaped like the Western music industry. See, kids, in Mr. Overdorf's world, the American way is the "right" way and everything else is weird and wrong. Today's piece is called "India's New License to Rock" and on the face of it doesn't seem that bad, right? Mr. Overdorf interviews Vijay Nair, who just opened an indie record label in India. Mr. Nair wants to promote his bands and his label, which is great! I like rock music and I like going to rock shows. What I don't like is Mr. Overdorf writing the whole piece with a tone that yells: Finally India has Real Music(TM).

The Hindi popular music industry has always been very closely tied to the film industry. I'm not sure how it is in other parts of the country but the reading that I've done on Bollywood music tells of two industries that grew up hand-in-hand. I explain this to non-Bollywood fans by asking them to imagine if each film that came out was also a brand new album by their favorite artist. (This actually does happen once in a while in Hollywood. New Moon, for example, has a best selling album with new songs and don't forget the Pulp Fiction soundtrack.) The interconnectedness of film and music isn't a bad thing; it's just different from what we are used to in the West.

Says Mr. Overdorf: 

“India's music industry has always been dominated by the soundtracks churned out by Bollywood. Penned and recorded by side musicians and so-called ‘playback singers,’ this bouncy, upbeat pop music is then lip-synced by the film industry's mega stars and receives nearly limitless promotion through TV trailers and the country's dozen-odd music video channels. But even though famous playback singers and singer-composers like Slumdog Millionaire's A.R. Rahman occasionally perform at socialite weddings and awards ceremonies, the combination of Bollywood's heavily produced studio sound and the dominant role of side musicians rather than bands has until recently prevented the evolution of any real live music scene.” 

First of all, film songs are as varied as our "private recording" dominated popular music industries in Western countries. You can find trashy pop and sentimental ballads; dance music and devotional songs; sad songs, happy songs, love songs, heart-break songs, friendship songs, and many, many other kinds of songs. Scan the pop charts and see for yourself.

Here are the Billboard Top 10 Songs for the USA right now:

#1 "Empire State of Mind" Jay-Z and Alicia Keys

#2 "Bad Romance" Lady Gaga

#3 "Fireflies" Owl City

#4 "Whatcha Say" Jason Derulo

#5 "TiK ToK" Ke$ha

#6 "Replay" Iyaz

#7 "Sexy Chick" David Guetta

#8 "Papparazzi" Lady Gaga

#9 "3" Britney Spears

#10 "Down" by Jay Sean

And the Hindi Song Charts:

#1 "Jaaneman" (Radio)

#2 "Tera Hone Laga Hoon" (Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani)

#3 "Tum Mile" (Tum Mile)

#4 "Shukran Allah" (Kurbaan)

#5 "Aal Iz Well" (3 Idiots)

#6 "Sab Rishte Naate" (De Dana Dan)

#7 "Aj Din Chadheya" (Love Aaj Kal)

#8 "Iktara" (Wake Up Sid)

#9 "Man Ko Ati Bhave" (London Dreams)

#10 "Aaj Din Gustakh Hai" (Blue)

For those of you familiar with both industries, do you see much of a difference in the variety of songs? I certainly don't.

Actually, I would say that of the two charts, the American one has more of the—to use Mr. Overdorf's phrase—"bouncy, upbeat pop music [that] is then lip-synced by the [music] industry's mega stars and receives nearly limitless promotion through TV trailers and the country's dozen-odd music video channels." Don't get me wrong, I'm not hating on the Billboard Top 10 (six of which are on my iPod right now; I love the Gaga), just pointing out that people like what they like and tastes are not as different across the globe as people seem to think.

In fact, discounting the fact that film songs are closely tied to narrative, the biggest difference between the Hindi and Western music industries is that the Hindi music industry doesn't hide behind a facade of "bands" and "authenticity." Speaking from personal experience, let me tell you that unless one of Mr. Overdorf's beloved bands sets up their instruments around a microphone to record something—like Bon Iver did with "For Emma: Forever Ago"—you are listening to a product created by professional songwriters, professional lyricists, and professional studio musicians and filtered through every studio magic trick in the book.

Bollywood film song fans are under no illusions that Sonu Nigam and Sunidhi Chauhan are writing all their own material. We just enjoy the product.

The American music industry is way more illusion-filled than Bollywood actors lip-syncing. Do you really think Bon Jovi wrote "It's My Life" (credit goes to Max Martin, who also wrote Britney Spears' "If You Seek Amy")? At least we all know Salman is just mouthing the words. Personally, as a former behind-the-scenes person myself, I think the prominence of the songwriters, lyricists, and playback singers is a good thing.

Let's return to Mr. Overdorf: 

“Already, indie bands like Pentagram, the Raghu Dixit Project and Indian Ocean are breaking through into the mainstream music market. And as Bollywood seeks to reinvent its evergreen genre flicks, the fringes of the film business are beginning to look to the indies for source music instead of purpose-built studio tracks. Director Anurag Kashyap, for instance, tapped Indian Ocean for the soundtrack to his 2004 film Black Friday, about the investigations following the 1993 serial Bombay bomb blasts. Though Anurag Basu selected Bollywood veterans Pritam Chakraborty and Sayeed Quadri for the soundtrack to his 2007 Life in a Metro, for the first time instead of lip-syncers Pritam himself appeared in music video-style interludes within the film as the front man to a real-life rock band. And then last year Bollywood insider Farhan Akhtar created a real, though fictional, band for the surprise hit Rock On!” 

Okay, hold your horses there, Brosef Stalin. "Purpose-built studio tracks"? Really? Get this through your head: singer/songwriter "band-driven" music is not the only kind of music in the world. Do you need me to repeat that: Not everyone needs to pretend that music is hitting their ears directly from a single artist's brain unscathed by such gauche accouterments as "professional lyricists" or "professional musicians." Go and listen to the Smithsonian Folkways Label if you want to stay pure, otherwise, live in the real world and deal with the fact that popular music is a collaborative process, resulting in "purpose-built studio tracks" that can be quite meaningful and beautiful and wonderful. The close melding of narrative and music in Bollywood film calls for such "purpose-built" tracks. That's literally the whole point. The narrative drives the songs.

Please tell me why you feel that Pritam appearing in Life in a Metro was such a big deal. Because, dude, Bollywood existed before you set foot in India in 2002 (yes, I looked up his bio) and musicians have been appearing in Bollywood films for a very, very long time. But unlike the fantasy land of Hollywood, Bollywood audiences understand that not every actor is a good singer and not every musician is a good actor. If there is going to be a cabaret scene, we would prefer to see a good dancer, like Helen, mime the words to a good song, written by R.D. Burman, and sung by Asha Bhosle, a good singer. When we want to see Asha sing, we can attend one of her... get this... LIVE MUSIC CONCERTS. Just because the American music industry exists in a fairy land where "bands" somehow transmit their songs directly to the audience without "studio magic" or "professional songwriters" doesn't mean that the rest of the world is under that illusion.

But the heart of the story is about the emergence of a rock scene in India and the growing number of rock music venues.

However, as in his Newsweek piece, Mr. Overdorf seems to confuse "what I'm used to" with "good." And his main complaint seems to be that there is no live music scene in India but read "rock music" for "live music" because that is Mr. Overdorf's implication. He and Mr. Nair are celebrating the growth of little rock venues like the kind I used to play in Boston and, you know what, that's awesome! I love rock music and live rock music but it's extremely lazy to just assume that a lack of rock venues means a lack of live music in general. I am a rock music fan. Really! I play the bass guitar and everything. I'm not hating on rock music or dismissing what Mr. Nair is doing. I think the spread of all different types of music is a wonderful thing. What I take issue with in Mr. Overdorf's article is that he doesn't frame Mr. Nair's record label as the growth of a new type of music among the many types already available but as if the emergence of one record label that produces "bands" as Mr. Overdorf knows them is the beginning of "authentic" popular music.Did anyone else catch that? According to Overdorf here, Bollywood is the candy-floss pumped out by the major companies and not "real music" while bands playing Western music with expensive Western instruments in a Western style are "authentic". Right. Again, I'm not hating on the bands themselves. I like rock and I like desi rock but Mr. Overdorf's cultural superiority really disgusts me.

(Originally posted December 2, 2009)

Another note from the future—reading this again makes we wonder why he didn’t point to Coke Studio as part of a new direction for “authentic” popular music. The Pakistani version launched in 2008 and rock has much deeper roots in Pakistan than India.