Singer Shaan is happy that Instagram and YouTube have taken several of his hits from years ago to a newer generation. Whether it’s in trending Reels or throwback clips shared by accounts, Shaan’s songs are finding a new audience, something the singer is grateful for. But he does have one complaint – how he and his contemporaries are often boxed as ’90s singers’. In a candid chat with Hindustan Times, Shaan talks about his career so far and the state of the music industry in India currently.
On reprisals and remixes
In an era of reprises and remixes, Shaan hardly brings back his own songs. The reason is largely technico-legal, the singer says. “The technical issue is that our songs are not ours. As singers, we have just sung the songs. But they belong to composers. Actually, they don’t even belong to them. Their rights are with the label. So, you can’t really do this unless a label wants you to. They’ll bring it down,” he says.
Why melodies shouldn’t be dated
He often hears his new songs being described as having a ’90s vibe’, and the singer admits it irks him. “It’s wrong to put singers in a dated bracket,” he says, “When you tell singers that their voice has a 90s’ melody, it is wrong. It’s a mindset. If Udit (Narayan) ji sings a contemporary song, people will say it has that 90s feel. When Shaan or Sonu (Nigam) sings a new song, people will say it feels so much from the 2000s. But when Shah Rukh Khan does Pathaan, you don’t say it looks like Baazigar or Ram Jaane. But this is a mindset. We get dated, but our heroes never get dated.”
The departure of playback singing
Playback singing has been the bedrock of Indian film music for over eight decades now. Singers have been known as actors’ voices for generations, starting from Mukesh and Raj Kapoor to Shaan and Saif Ali Khan. But this trend of a singer being an actor’s voice no longer exists. “The playback culture has gone,” says Shaan, “The culture of modulating (your voice) to an actor was something that had started to go away while we were starting out. It’s a personal keeda (urge) of some singers that they still do it.”
The singer says he had seen his idols like Kishore Kumar and Mohammed Rafi do it in their days, which is why his generation of singers did it. “We had heard since childhood that when Rafi sahab sang for Shammi Kapoor, he would incorporate his body language in his voice. Similarly, Kishore da put a nasal touch when he sang for Sanjeev Kumar, while it was a baritone for Bachchan sahab. So, when we got a chance, we also applied those things. We were not told. But that culture has gone,” the singer explains.
But today, it hardly ever happens. Partially, it is because many times, today, singers don’t even know which actor they are recording a song for. Shaan says, “That’s an obvious reason, but sometimes, even when you know it, that effort is not made. When you are casting for an actor and you know his voice, energy, and style, the effort to get a voice that matches all that has gone out. It was still around when we were there.”
The singer is currently preparing for his live concert in Mumbai this Friday, where he pays tribute to Kishore Kumar. Forever Kishore Shaan Se is presented by Namrata Gupta Khan and Rabbani Mustafa Khan of NR Talent & Event Management, the family of Shaan’s guru, Ustad Ghulam Mustafa Khan Sahab. The concert is scheduled for 19 September at Mumbai’s NMACC.
