Over to our MusicMan Rohwit for some saturday musings.
After a near disastrous season 1 and an ‘almost’ salvaging Season 2, Coke Studio At MTV is back with Season 3. This time the season boasts of big names like A R Rahman, Papon and Amit Trivedi. Other musicians include the very talented Ram Sampath, Salim- Sulaiman, Hitesh Sonik and Clinton Cerejo.
We all know that big names do not cut much if they aren’t used well. Still, below is what we know for sure.
7 episodes with one composer each, out of which 6 episodes have 6 songs and 1 episode has 5.
Last episode with 6 different producers/bands putting up one song each.
47 songs in the season.
No composer gets repeated across episodes.
Some vocalists get repeat episodes including Kailash Kher (please innovate this time?) and Vijay Prakash who feature as singers on more than one episode.
Some musicians of the band including (but not limited to) Warren, Rushad, Jarvis, Darshan, Lindsay, Sanjoy Das and Tapas get featured in more than one episode.
Even the website this time round has a complete feel to it and that’s a good thing.
http://www.cokestudioindia.com
We don’t know the full details of who all will collaborate with Amit Trivedi and AR Rahman. The ‘Zariya’ video with Ani Choying Drolma and Farah Siraj was just splendid to say the least! The arrangement, the fusion and the overall presentation didn’t lack anything.No one was posing for the camera and the lights weren’t distracting at all. Gushfest allegations aside, my heart raced at around 6:32 minutes when Farah air-removes the evil eye on A R Rahman to which he smiles.
It would be exciting to see the collaboration and presentation this season because the buzz has gone into almost an overkill with too many youtube ‘session videos’ around. Amidst all the names, what intrigues (and quite frankly scares us a little bit) is the inclusion of Salim-Sulaiman and it is not because of the composers, it is because of the bollywood fest the season 1 turned out to be. We certainly aren’t looking at a long session of ‘Shukran allah’ from the composers and hope they are aware of it. We love everything about the folk that is Rajasthani and Punjabi. Still, there is much more left to be explored (even within Rajasthani and Punjabi) and may be they will present it to us.
There isn’t just one way to present ‘fusion’. While our neighbours have raised the bar very high in a quiet and understated manner, we hope that season 3 gives us a little more of music and a little less ‘hype’ around the names. Showcasing talent from across the regions and that too melodiously, is what Coke Studio is all about and if after the end of Coke Studio India season 3, we remember fondly at least 7 new singers and some genres that we were unaware of previously (Thanks to excessive bollywood-ized in-take of music), we think the job of musically erasing season 1 completely from our minds would have been accomplished.
Trivia – Last year, in this interview, Rohail Hyatt (the creator of Coke Studio Pakistan) hinted at a joint presentation of India-Pakistan artists in a Coke Studio India Session. Whatever happened to that?
Still. NO. FREE. DOWNLOADS.
WHY?
So what are your expectations from this season of desi Coke Studio?
F.i.g.h.t C.l.u.b 