Unfortunately, I never had an opportunity to meet lyricist Raajesh Johri, who passed away on March 1. But like most people, I followed his work in the 1990s, both in Indipop and advertising jingles.
Check out his offerings: Suneeta Rao’s chartbuster ‘ Pari Hoon Main ’, the Johnny Joker album by Shweta Shetty, Sa Ni Dha Pa by Colonial Cousins, the album Tere Bina by Abhijeet, the Prestige pressure cooker and Nirma detergent ads. The second line of the multi-artiste track, ‘ Miley Sur Mera Tumhara ’ struck Johri over a bite of biryani. The last I read was that he had recently begun working on an album with ghazal duo Bhupinder and Mitali.
Those close to him were in shock, and many described him as a mentor who especially encouraged youngsters. The fact is, he represented a different era. A time when, for a few years, Indipop emerged as a strong alternative to Hindi film music, more so after the 1980s ghazal wave subsided. The following period from 1991 to 1997 has a special role in popular non-film Hindi music. Besides singers like Rao and Shetty, others to make a mark were Baba Sehgal, Sharon Prabhakar, Gurdas Maan and Alisha Chinai.
Nobody really knows who invented the term ‘Indipop’, but many claim to be its originators. Yet, the best artistes were created by Magnasound, headed by Shashi Gopal and with Atul Churamani leading the search for talent and developing their repertoire. Look at the Magnasound catalogue. It sported names like Shetty, Sehgal, Chinai, Daler Mehndi, Colonial Cousins, Shaan, Sagarika, composer Biddu, and star video director Ken Ghosh. Chinai’s ‘Made in India’ smashed sales records, and Mehndi and Colonial Cousins became overnight stars.
BMG-Crescendo, helmed by Suresh Thomas, soon came in and had a major hit with Lucky Ali, besides medium success with Mehnaz and Anaida. PolyGram (now Universal Music) got Asha Bhosle to do an Indipop album, besides an R.D. Burman remix compilation.
The music channels Channel V, MTV, etc and B4U aired these musicians’ videos all day. The glory period was 1995-97. Not that all this dented in film music. A.R. Rahman, Jatin-Lalit, Nadeem-Shravan and Anu Malik continued to thrive.
But there was an alternative listening culture, which told us that one didn’t need to drool at film stars to appreciate popular songs. There were certainly some big hits after 1997 too. Altaf Raja’s ‘ Tum toh thehre pardesi ’, released by Venus, had twice the sale of Chinai’s ‘Made In India’, with every rickshaw-wallah playing the tape. Sonu Nigam’s album Deewana was a rage. Mehndi continued his balle-balle rocking.
Sadly, the rot soon set in. All labels were bent on releasing ‘private albums’. Many singers used Indipop as a base before eventually choosing film music for more money. Bhangra-pop had some great artistes, but an overdose of trash with scant writers. Both established and wannabe singers started charging the moon. Politics took over the art.
Shoddy remixes and crude videos came in. Everyone with enlarged biceps or a exposed belly button wanted to become a video star. Listeners watched videos, but never heard them closely. Indipop became Indi- paap . The hits became fewer. As a genre, Indipop had vanished.
To come back to Johri, those who knew him closely will identify with that whole era. Today, indie music is totally different from Indipop. Where are the non-film lyric writers? For that matter, how much good film music exists now? The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind.
The author is a freelance music writer
