Telugu films: "outsourcing" singers?
UVR
"Outsourcing" seems to be on the increase for singing jobs in
Telugu films.
Singer crossovers have been a common feature between Telugu and
Tamil films, and to a lesser extent between these two, Kannada
and Malayalam. But, as I was trolling through the Telugu section
of musicindiaonline dot com earlier today, imagine my surprise
when I found songs credited to names one normally finds in Hindi
films: Udit Narayan, Sadhana Sargam, Kay Kay, Shankar Mahadevan,
Hariharan, Vasundhara Das, Shreya Ghoshal and even (oh gawd not
him, too!) Kumar Sanu in the "Top 10" list!!!
Now, wait. I'm not saying this is A Bad Thing. Not at all.
Actually, I am all for this kind of talent exchange. It could
prove to be a Good thing both for Telugu music and for the singers
concerned. Provided, of course, the singers and the MDs who
train them to sing the words this way or that pay some attention
to the job they must do! And that's where my problem begins.
Some of these people have such HORRID Telugu pronunciations, esp.
Udit and Sanu! MDs training them need to be more particular about
getting them to enunciate words with a proper accent. As I was
listening to these two sing, I couldn't help but think how far we
have come from the days when a certain now-infamous comment was
made about a particular "daal-bhaat-khaane waali ladki's" Urdu
accent! Even on SaReGaMaPa, the contestants' pronunciation is a
common point of criticism from judges. Heck, I think even Sanu
cited pronunciation as a factor when he came to judge an episode.
So, why isn't what's good for the goose good for the gander?
What will it take: a "maa-ki-daal/maachher jhol khaane waalaa"
comment? (Just kidding)
OTOH, others, especially Sadhana, pull of a good accent with
such admirable alacrity and aplomb that it almost restores your
faith in the entire outsourcing/crossing over thing. Shreya
Ghoshal does a 'reasonably OK'-to-'pretty good indeed' job
depending, it seems, on whom she's singing for and what kind of
song she's singing. Kay Kay, Shankar and Hariharan are very
good.
This is my opinion, and I'm sticking with it ;)
Thanks for reading through my rant.
-UVR.
PS: If you can understand Telugu, check out the song
"telugu bhaaSha" by SP Charan [Neeku Nenu Naaku Nuvvu (2003)].
Srinivas Ganti
"UVR" <u...@usa.net> wrote in message
news:vrvfnbn...@corp.supernews.com...
>
>
> "Outsourcing" seems to be on the increase for singing jobs in
> Telugu films.
<snipped>
> Some of these people have such HORRID Telugu pronunciations, esp.
> Udit and Sanu! Kay Kay, Shankar and Hariharan are very
> good.
I first noticed Udit and Hariharan sing in Telugu in the late 90's movie
"Choodalani Vundi".
Udit probably had more than one song. I can recall "gopala bala" offhand.
I didn't have problems with Hariharans accent. He is very good in the song
"yamaha nagari calacutta puri yamogiri howra varadhi".
Incidentally one line of the song in the Antara goes
"paluvru Satyajit Ray'lu kaara, SD Burman ki dhaara, Teresa Kumara..".
sg.
Shree
> Telugu films.
>
> Singer crossovers have been a common feature between Telugu and
> Tamil films, and to a lesser extent between these two, Kannada
> and Malayalam. But, as I was trolling through the Telugu section
> of musicindiaonline dot com earlier today, imagine my surprise
> when I found songs credited to names one normally finds in Hindi
> films: Udit Narayan, Sadhana Sargam, Kay Kay, Shankar Mahadevan,
> Hariharan, Vasundhara Das, Shreya Ghoshal and even (oh gawd not
> him, too!) Kumar Sanu in the "Top 10" list!!!
>
> Some of these people have such HORRID Telugu pronunciations, esp.
> Udit and Sanu! MDs training them need to be more particular about
> getting them to enunciate words with a proper accent. As I was
> listening to these two sing, I couldn't help but think how far we
> have come from the days when a certain now-infamous comment was
> made about a particular "daal-bhaat-khaane waali ladki's" Urdu
> accent!
<snip>
I find Lata mangeshkar quite bad at pronouncing Kannada (e.g. 'beLLane
beLagaayitu') and Telugu ('tella cheeraku ..' from aakhari pOraaTam).
Same can be said of Yesudas singing in Hindi, and of Usha Uthup
singing in any non-English language. I have been now conditioned to
believe that SPB has improved his Hindi diction.
But then, it is mandatory for all respectable singers to accumulate
credit for singing 'more than XXXX thousand songs in more than XXX
number of Indian and foreign languages'.
--Shree
Afzal A. Khan
Shree wrote:
> I have been now conditioned to
> believe that SPB has improved his Hindi diction.
> --Shree
To what purpose ? He hardly ever sings Hindi songs
these days.
Afzal
Jan
who were quite bored of hearing SPB's (monopolistic and) monotonous
voice again & again & again. Yes, some of the singers pronounce some
telugu words horribly but over the years they have improved on their
telugu singing abilities (for eg. compare Udit in chooDalani vundi's
"raammaa chilakamma" (his first telugu song) vs. vasantam's
"jaampanDuvE").
On the lighter side, today's telugu heroes cannot pronounce telugu
properly and telugu heroines are not really "telugu" but again
"outsourced". So their singing on the screen should be compensated by
"not-so-good-at-telugu-speaking" playback-singers to look/hear more
natural :-)
Jan
Srinivas Ganti
"Shree" <maz...@hotmail.com> wrote
> I find Lata mangeshkar quite bad at pronouncing Kannada (e.g. 'beLLane
> beLagaayitu') and Telugu ('tella cheeraku ..' from aakhari pOraaTam).
> Same can be said of Yesudas singing in Hindi, and of Usha Uthup
> singing in any non-English language. I have been now conditioned to
> believe that SPB has improved his Hindi diction.
I find Rafi terrible in Telugu. He was used in a bunch of movies.
Talat also sang in Telugu for the movie Manorama.
sg.
UVR
>
> I find Rafi terrible in Telugu. He was used in a bunch of movies.
> Talat also sang in Telugu for the movie Manorama.
It pains the dyed-in-the-blood Rafian in me to admit this, but
Rafi's "naa madi ninnu pilichindi gaan{a}mai" *is* a case study
in how NOT to sing Telugu songs. :( He gets so many words
wrong, it's not even funny.
Talat, relatively, does a decent job in the Manorama song, IMO
(barring the funky way in which says "*diuwwya* prEma mayaM").
-UVR.
Sydney Assbasket
I thought Shankar Mahadevan was a Tamilian raised in Mumbai and that Hariharan
was also Tamilian? Isn't Vasundhara Das also from the South?
Udit Narayan also sings many Tamil songs. The earliest I can recall is
"Kadhalikkum Pennin" from Kaadhalan (Humse Hai Muqabla in Hindi) about 8-9
years ago. I've recently heard a few songs in Tamil by Shreya Ghosal. Her
singing in "Elangaathu Veesudhe" from Pithamagan (MD Ilayaraja) is okay, but
not bad. Very nice song. It can be heard at tamilsongs.net.
Other recent crossover singers I can recall (I'm sure there are plenty more):
Tamil
--------
Adnan Sami- "Boom Boom" (Boys, ARR)
Lucky Ali- "Secret of Success" (Boys, ARR)
Sukvindher Singh- "Jothi Nerinjava" (12B, Harris Jayaraj) SS also does
background vocals occasionally, and sang part of the Tamil version of Chaiyya
Chaiyya
Malayalam
----------------
Kailash Kher- "Parayuka Nee" (Kilichundan Mambazham, Vidyasagar)
Adnan Sami and Lucky Ali's pronunciation was pretty bad.
I read somewhere that Ismail Durbar did the music for a Telugu film. I don't
know if it has been released or the name of the film.
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