The establishment view is that good or weighty music has no place in today’s consumer space.
That’s a lame excuse and shows a lack of commitment. If it seems that way it’s because the options are bad, worse or worst, so you choose the bad! But give people the chance to choose between bad and good and they will inevitably choose good! Positioning something different needs a bit of strategy, but I do not think that I have done something niche or esoteric - I would say this is a completely mainstream album.
The title Classically Mild is frank, yet intriguing.
Yes, I have always been saying that I will give a perfect yet unique title. This is mild but classical music presented in an appealing way without spoiling its purity, and Classically Mild describes it completely.
Your Rafi album too is with Saregama. This is another change in direction.
It was Saregama that approached me for the Mohammed Rafi album when the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra contacted them. Today, a truly creative artiste who wants to grow must be allowed to spread his wings and not have them clipped off before flight. You need to have a music company that is so committed to good music that they respect the creative urges and expressions of an artiste. Saregama had the gumption to not only take up such a project but also gave me and my team complete freedom in what we wished to do.
Why was Deepak Pandit your choice as composer?
I have known Deepak for a long time and he is very rooted. Besides being probably the finest young violinist in the country he is also a good singer. We started working on this album two years back. In fact, when we began we had planned a semi-classical ghazal album, but later we agreed that we should not choose a genre that exists but make a new one, and so came the idea of “classically mild”.
In fact, my entire team was formed on the premise of being one in thought. We had to speak the same language and with the same passion. That’s how lyricist Ajay Jhingran too, who had earlier written my hit Bijuria, came in. His first remark was that he could wipe off the cobwebs of superficial rhymes that are a market-driven habit and come up with depth. There are passages in his work where you just wonder “How did he even conceive such a thought?” For example, there is a line that goes Pal pal badhti umar ghate kyoon? What a concept that is!
My technicians were Pramod Chandorkar, an ace in his field as a recording engineer and Santosh Mulekar, my brilliant programmer. Saregama and my team have been breathing the album for months now.
As a singer, how different are you in this album?
I am not ashamed to admit that we were all moved enough to weep when creating and listening to some of the tracks. I know that I am no Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, but I want to go beyond my expertise and I want that history will say “Sonu ne jawaani mein bhi accha kaam kiya!” So I told Deepak to make my songs vocally as tough as possible and the musical phrases as intricate as could be. But all the toil and long wait have been worth it in terms of the result, even if I am saying this myself. No one can say that my team and I have not done our very best!
What next apart from your normal playback work and the Rafi album?
Well, let’s see. I am planning to do a Kannada album.
Kannada! Why so?
Most people are not aware that I am recording as many as 10 songs in Kannada every month. The biggest song of 2007 was mine from a film named Mungaru Malle. The Kannadigas have showered so much love on me that I want to give them a gift in gratitude.
