‘Mirzapur’ music composer Anand Bhaskar: Audience has stopped expecting more from us 

Music composer/singer Anand Bhaskar has come a long way from his band ‘Anand Bhaskar Collective. Now he has proved himself to be far more talented than just a guitarist or vocalist. After working for more than a decade in advertising and dong some playback singing, Anand Bhaskar’s music and singing for web series Mirzapur made the heads turn. He has finally arrived in Bollywood.

In conversation with Raviraj Sinha Anand Bhaskar candidly talks about music in general and the state of music in Bollywood today:

1. Tell us about your journey:

My journey in music started when I was around 3 or 4 years old. I was actively interested in singing and had a natural talent for it. I grew up on a lot of different types of music. My musical journey also included training in Carnatic music and picking up nuances of Hindustani classical music from various teachers and collaborators over the years. Apart from Indian music, I have been heavily influenced by international pop, rock, jazz, hip-hop, R&B and electronic music and am an avid seeker and listener of new music.

2. Whom do you get inspired by and how did you get into the music?:

I’m hugely inspired by A R Rahman and Amit Trivedi. Both Rahman Sir and Amit Sir have taught me one thing. It’s a strong sense of melody. Listening to their music made me realise that if your melodies are strong, they’ll fit beautifully in any genre! I’ve been singing since the age of 3 and composing since the age of 15. When I was in a daily 9-5 job, I had already released an album with my band ‘Anand Bhaskar Collective’. However, my career as a professional, full-time musician started with singing for ad campaigns, followed by composing for ads and then going on to singing songs in films like Baaghi 2 and Mission Mangal. My first project of repute, as a composer, is the highly acclaimed web series ‘Mirzapur’ on Amazon Prime.

3. What do you think of reality shows on singing like Indian Idol, Sa Re Ga Ma Pa, The Voice etc?

However, the plus side to these shows is that some really underrated and unknown talents come to the forefront of the mainstream entertainment industry and with some luck and good management they’re able to make a name for themselves. However, I am not fond of reality television, and that includes shows that involve music. There used to be a time when singing competitions on television had real gravitas and the contestants weren’t made scapegoats of TRPs. It’s not the same anymore. Most of the shows focus on sob stories and what not to garner sympathies of the audience which isn’t the essence of real competition. So just like everything in life, reality shows have their pros and cons. Again, this is just MY opinion, I am okay with somebody disagreeing with it.

4. What is your take on the culture of remixes in Bollywood?

We don’t seem to have original music nowadays in Hindi cinema. Everybody wanting remixes was a weak trend, to begin with. And as expected it’s starting to fade away. But honestly, it all depends on the audience. The AUDIENCE has stopped expecting more from us. They’ve shown the powers that be that as long as they have the same 4 beats and the same 4 chords and the same 2 voices to listen to, they’ll be happy. A major chunk of the Bollywood audience did everything they could to boycott a certain film because they were led to believe that that was the need of the hour. If they can do that, they definitely have the power to demand fresh music from us, and when THAT demand is seen by labels, fresh music WILL be made. Unless a paradigm shift doesn’t happen in terms of how the audience perceives new music, we’ll be subjected to ‘trends that work’. Also, my take on remixes is this, that if it is absolutely essential for a composer to remake a song for the benefit of the script, a remix here and there doesn’t matter. However, if that becomes the entire basis of selling entertainment to the audience, then it says a lot more about the audience than those who are selling the music.

5. Bollywood music till the 70s was brilliant and even today those songs are recalled and enjoyed. Does our music industry lack talent now to create such forever green melodies?

Our music industry has some of the most talented people in the world. And this is an indisputable fact. The reason why music in the 60s and 70s was brilliant was because the audience wanted something complex and something with depth, both lyrically and musically in the film’s music or songs, but today we live in an age of instant gratification. If you notice, songs with musical buildups as intros are not being made anymore, because the digital behaviour of Indian music audiences states that they lose interest in a song if the singing doesn’t begin in the first few seconds. This needs to change. A song isn’t like a cold drink that you can just guzzle to quench your thirst. A song is more like a hot cup of tea that you slowly sip to enjoy the flavour and infusion of the tea leaves. As long as the audience stays away from exploring new voices and new forms of music, the quality of music won’t change. That being said, it’s not like there’s no good music being made. There is some stellar music being made, but there’s also some mediocre music being in equal amounts.

6. How much time you have taken to create music in “Mirzapur” and how did you get this project?

It took me about a year to create all the songs in Mirzapur, however, if we count the time taken to compose the songs individually then it was merely a matter of a few months. The length of the duration taken to deliver the songs was mostly because of Covid, otherwise, I would’ve delivered all the songs by March this year. I was referred to producers of Mirzapur by Ankur Tewari, frontman of ‘Ankur and The Ghalat Family’, and curator of the ‘Gully Boy’ soundtrack.

7. As we know you are trained in different genres of music, what do you think is most accepted and suitable for our Hindi industry?

I feel that anybody aiming to work in the Indian entertainment industry as a musician should first train in Classical Art forms. If you want to be a dancer learn Kathak if you want to be a vocalist learn Hindustani Classical Singing etc. The same goes for instrumentalists and composers. I feel that once you have a decent knowledge of Indian Classical Music theory, you can pick up any other genre of music. I feel that Indian Classical music is one of the toughest music schools in the world and that it has everything that can prepare us for a world that expects versatility.