Best songs of 1951: Final Wrap-Up 5

And the SoY Award for the Best Music Director goes to?

This is the third series of detailed year-wise review of songs. Mid-way I had a feeling that this exercise might appear monotonous and uninteresting. I am very happy to note that my fears were unfounded. Rather, the readers’ participation has been more intense and passionate, and their comments very knowledgeable. Therefore, as I conclude this year’s exercise with the Final Wrap-Up about the best music director(s), I have to sincerely thank the readers for their participation and making the exercise worthwhile.

A qualitative improvement in this year’s exercise was triggered by Venkataramanji’s detailed statistical analysis of songs and their distribution. This helped me coin two new phrases – Inversion of the pyramid in respect of male playback singers to describe the phenomena of Rafi having the largest number of total songs, but the least number of memorable songs compared to Mukesh and Talat Mahmood; and Flattening of the pyramid in respect of female playback singers, where Lata Mangeshkar’s dominance in the total number of songs gets further accentuated in the number of memorable songs. This gave a concrete shape to what was known anecdotally or by common sense. This also indicates that there are enormous possibilities of very interesting time-series analyses of Hindi film songs.

Another new thing was splitting the female solos in two parts – Lata Mangeshkar and ‘Others’. This came out of the readers’ suggestions and became necessary because we had many ‘other’ singers, who gave their all-time great songs in the year. Without meaning to pre-empt, I can foresee this in greater degree as we go back in time for the next two years, i.e. 1950 and 1949. Going further back, Lata Mangeshkar would recede in visibility, and we would be entering what I describe as the Era of Vintage Female Singers, when there would be no single-singer domination of the kind we witnessed in the 50s and 60s.

But the most interesting part of this year’s exercise was the fireworks caused by my exclusion of Awara hun, with some cheeky comment. One reader found it difficult to ‘digest the exclusion’; another thought the exercise without this song had become ‘meaningless’. An interesting angle was given by Gaddeswarupji, who ‘wondered whether slowly these classifications and lists move elites away from the common people, the exact opposite of what was achieved by the film music’. This raises complex academic questions and also implies a certain disapproval of ‘elitism’. I carried on the discussion with him through mail. But very simply, what we are doing on SoY is indeed elitist within the domain of the film music (i.e. if you don’t consider film music and elitism an oxymoron), and I don’t see myself and the readers of the SoY being defensive about it, or doing it in the “common people’s” way.

The Final Wrap-Up exercise raises two perennial questions. One is the popularity versus quality debate. I think we have a sense of what constitutes the ‘best’ as distinct from what is, say, at the top of ‘Binaca Geetmala’, and I would not like to labour this point more. SoY readers have a fair consensus on the best songs in a year. Earlier, I had proposed a 2×2 PQ matrix as follows:

Even in the Golden Era, at least 75% of the songs would fall in the first quadrant, which would probably never be discussed on SoY. Our great strength lies in discovering a large number of songs in the third quadrant – the hidden gems – by collective effort. I propose to the mathematicians and the music experts in SoY family if it is possible to devise a more precise PQI (Popularity-Quality-Index) of a song. Till such time, we have to carry on our discussion in general terms, which has served our purpose well.

The second question needs more consideration. This relates to whether we look at one film with the best score or the total work of a composer in the year. I am somewhat flexible on this. If once in a while you get a score like Rattan or Mughal-e-Azam, which is decidedly path-breaking and towering way above others in the year, it settles the question. But this does not happen often. In most years, 3-4 leading composers would have a number of films with very good music, and somewhere in our mind we carry a composite picture of all the memorable songs across different films, done by a music director. The top literary awards, such as Nobel Prize, have also faced such dilemma. Even though an outstanding ‘work’ may be cited, the award is meant to recognize the total work of a writer. My discussion would generally follow this approach.

With this preamble, I need only to refer to my Overview Post which initiated the series, and rest my case. To recapitulate, the leading composers of the year were Anil Biswas (Aaraam, Tarana, Badi Bahu), SD Burman (Baazi, Bahaar, Buzdil, Ek Nazar, Naujawaan, Sazaa), Shankar-Jaikishan (Aawara, Baadal, Kali Ghata, Nageena), C Ramchandra (Albela, Sagaai) and Roshan (Hum Log, Malhaar). Jamal Sen had a spectacular debut music-wise, with Shokhiyan. He is a prime example of Quadrant III – almost a forgotten composer, with relatively unknown songs, but of stunning beauty, which we would not have discovered but for the Internet and a forum like SoY. The maverick genius, Sajjad Husain, too, has been spoken of very highly, and there are some more who gave everlasting songs.

Since this year’s discussion has gone very analytical, let me add a new approach by giving the distribution of the 40 best songs in the four Wrap-Ups composer-wise.

You can refresh your memory of the above 40 Best Songs by visiting Wrap-Up 1 (Male solos), Wrap-Up 2 (‘Other’ female solos), Wrap-Up 3 (Lata Mangeshkar solos) and Wrap-Up 4 (Duets).

Some caveats are in order regarding the above table. Nothing can be perfect in this kind of analysis. For example, a perceptive reader can remark, how come with Tum na jaane kis jahan mein kho gaye, Jhan jhan jhan jhan paayal baaje and Thandi hawaayein, SD Burman accounts for only one Lata solo. That is a problem of Lata-plenty, you need to include her 30 songs to cover all her immortal songs of the year. There could be some differences due to harmonization of individual choices. Subject to such inherent difficulties, the above table throws up interesting features.

The Bhishm Pitamah of film music, Anil Biswas, not only accounts for the most songs, he is the only one present across all the four categories. The next two in total number are SD Burman and Shankar Jaikishan, accounting for six songs each, covering three categories. An interesting feature is SDB’s four songs for ‘other’ female singers – the largest for any composer, confirming his known reputation for diversity. No wonder, he is the only one among the top composers, who gave great songs for all the female and male playback singers of the Golden Era. C Ramchandra, with four songs, is next in numbers, but spanning only two categories, which is consistent with his Lata-centric music in the 50s. The next to follow in the table, Roshan, is an interesting study. His three songs span three different categories, again consistent with his deftness with all the singers, and different styles and genres of music. After SD Burman, if there is anyone who showed similar diversity, it is Roshan. I have written on his songs for Rafi and Lata Mangeshkar, and indirectly for Mukesh, but there is a lot more to Roshan still left to be covered.

Now the readers can see where all this is leading to. I summarise my argument by mentioning the seven songs by Anil Biswas, which figured in different Bests:

1.  Ae jaane jigar dil mein samaane aa ja (Mukesh, Aaraam)
2.  Shukriya ae pyaar tera shukriya (Talat Mahmood, Aaraam)
3.  Ek main hun ek meri (Talat Mahmood, Tarana)
4.  Ramaiya bin neend na aawe (Rajkumari, Badi Bahu)
5.  Beimaan tore nainwa nindiya na aawe (Lata Mangeshkar, Tarana)
6.  Seene mein sulagate hain armaan (Talat Mahmood and Lata Mangeshkar, Tarana)
7.  Kaahe nainon mein kajraa bharo (Mukesh and Lata Mangeshkar, Badi Bahu)

The above list makes it clear it is not only about numbers. Anil Biswas gave exceptional music in 1951. Therefore, I believe everyone would endorse if he is given the Best Music Director Award for the year. Celebrating his centenary series and the Review of 1951 songs proceeded independently, and I had not thought that they would converge in such an amazing coincidence.

Thus,

The Songs of Yore Award for the Best Music Director of 1951 goes to Anil Biswas.