Bollywood?

[22by7.livejournal.com]

From the movie 'Jaane Tu... Ya Jaane Na'. There are seven singers, most of them new on the scene unless I'm mistaken (Anupama Deshpande, Benny Dayal, Blaze, Darshana, Mohammad Aslam, Satish Subramanium, and Tanvi). The lyrics are by Abbas Tyrewala, who is also the director. The music is by A.R. Rahman. I haven't seen this movie yet, but the film clip features the college-age lead couple. the object of ridicule happens to be a certain type of affluent, well-dressed, gym-going, guitar-'playing' young man who is, as we say, 'Westernised' - if you don't have Hindi, you can probably still tell from the English fragments. At the end of the day he's still a pathetic wannabe - because he can't dance, saala.

When I first heard it, drowsing at my desk with the radio on, I thought it was a medley. Or a mashup. But it's all one song, and the different textures and styles and voices work fabulously together. I've heard that the figure of Pappu is also supposed to be a stand-in for a veeery famous Bollywood actor (but how do I explain Salman Khan in one post?). The problem is, many of the people listening to and dancing (badly?) to this song - its target audience - probably fit the profile just as well. And the choreography in this sequence is delightful - none of the people making fun of this Pappu guy can dance very well themselves. But this isn't satire, so it's not really a problem. Hah.

I love the football-field shouts and and whistles in the chorus, too, just noticed that.

One bit is, by the way, a direct reference to the brilliant song "Papa Kehta Hai" from the 1988 classic 'Qyamat Se Qyamat Tak', which starred Aamir Khan, who is the uncle of this movie's young male lead Imraan Khan and is also the producer (... I know.)

Augh, I can't stop playing this song. DISCUSS.

Comments

[koganbot]

Even more intrigued by "Papa Kehte Hai": was the song deliberately meant to evoke the '50s, or did that just happen? (And is it significant that the best dancers in that clip are thirty years older than anyone else?)

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

ooh, more of this sort of thing pls! i know next to 0 about bollywood and always keen to hear new pop :)

[koganbot]

The clip is... charming, and the ordinariness of the dancers is part of its charm. Is the ordinariness deliberate, or just the sign of a low budget?

Football chanting is something I associate more with bhangra than Bollywood, though I know so little about either that what I'm saying is probably real ignorant. (And my impression of Bollywood is that it will cannibalize any and all music within chomping distance anyway.)