Copycats in Indian Film Music!!!

CopyCats have alwas existed in Indian film music - right from SD Burman, RD Burman to the recent Vishal-Shekhar, Nadeem Shravan and of course Anu Malik. This phenomenon has been there in tamil movies too - right from the Un Aattamellaam song from Ali Baba-vum 40 thirudargalum (copied from Ya Habibi Taala By Asmahan) to the three blatant lifts in Kadhal Kondein (by Yuvan Shankar) . However, the originality seems to be lower in Hindi movies. This is what I could infer from the site www.itwofs.com, which is a great database of copied songs! Look at the sheer number of hindi songs that have been copied -way too high!

Sometimes, u feel so shocked to find that the song which was a big hit and the one that u liked was copied. I got such a shock, when I came across this on www.itwofs.com:

 The song that made Hassan Jehangir a household name across the 2 countries - Hawa hawa. This chartbuster was first released in 1990 in Pakistan, but strangely enough, its Iranian original is as old as the 70s! Yes, the original is called 'Havar havar' and was by Persian singer Kourosh Yaghmai.

U can listen to the source song at the address mentioned above.

(In this site, ITWOFS, a convention is followed. A TC tag next to an entry means that the tune itself is lifted. The lack of creativity (or shall we say, absence of it?) of the music director can be gauged from this.)
By Aravind on Saturday, November 12, 2005 at 11:09 PM
10 Comments
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Comments

  1. True Blue Rahmaniac

    You put it much better than I did. You didn't invoke the ire of all the RD fans out there :)

  1. Aravind

    @ Sush:
    I wondered whether I can use "copycat" to refer to RDB.. but then, for a person with with 37 lifts to his name (26 of them tune-lifts), I can surely use that phrase :)
    A person is famous doesnot mean that his/her mistakes are not to be pointed out :)

  1. True Blue Rahmaniac

    Go right ahead and call him a copycat. It's the truth!!! You hit the nail right on the head. Now if you could just convince all the others who've been sending me real long emails! Thx for the info abt ARR coming to the USA. I'm really looking forward to it. I'll go to Atlanta if I have to!

  1. narayanan

    minor inspirations are acceptable, its the blatant lifts that irritate me.

    If one inspires a tune, he should be talented enough to modify that and cover his tracks.

    Among the copycats how did you leave the infamous Sirpi, the man who copy-pasted every tune in Ullathai Allitha :D.

    -narayanan

  1. Aravind

    @ Ranganathan St. :

    I havent covered all the copycats in this post... If so, I would have the entire i2fs site in my blog... lol.... Deva and his son Srikanth Deva are pathetic.. That too, Srikanth Deva is lifting like mad - everything is copied from very famous songs - inlcuding MGR song - Koduppadhellam Kodupppan!!!!

  1. Anonymous

    heh! crash-landed here while searching for "hasan jehangir songs"!!

    And you turn out to be my junior at IIMB! Which co have you joined?

    - Sumit
    (sumit DOT mittal AT gmail DOT com)

  1. Anonymous

    Hello Aravind,
    I am a big fan of ARR too. But he also has many lifts to his name.
    About a year back when I was watching 'The Firm' starring Tom Cruise I noticed something peculiar. There is a piano tune playing the the background which is same as the beginning sequence of the song 'Hello Mr. Ethirkaktchi' from 'Iruvar'. When I searched for the internet for this, I stumbled on itwofs. Surprised to see other Rahman tracks listed there.
    But ofcourse his music is more genuine that those of others like Pritam, Anu Malik and the like.

  1. Anonymous

    Great article! Thanks.

  1. Anonymous

    Thanks for interesting article.

  1. Anonymous

    Excellent website. Good work. Very useful. I will bookmark!

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