If the title-track of Cheeni Kum earned him first notice, the raag-based Manmohini from Yuvvraaj has made both listeners and the music world take note of Vijay Prakash, a trained singer in a jungle of off-key new crooners. ã ¤ ã ¤
The film has not done well, so have you benefitted from your song Manmohini more from Yuvvraaj? The song has benefitted me immensely, first because the A.R.Rahman-Subhash Ghai brand ensured promotion on a great magnitude. Yes, I know my song was not marketed as much as some of the others, but the bigness of the film ensured that everyone in the industry listened to it, including composers. There were also interesting and appreciative comments on the `Net'. ã ¤ ã ¤ ã ¤ ã ¤ Doesn't it pinch that a classical song is not promoted by the powers-that-be on an arbitrary assumption that such music does not sell vis-a-vis fusion, fast songs and Punjabi pop? Companies just feed the consumer with what they think will sell. This is based on certain exaggerated feedback that they get. But somewhere down the line amidst all such dance and pop music they should get rid of their insecurities and experiment with taking that one step towards promoting substance. People definitely have a taste for such songs - look at Aaoge jab tum saajana (Jab We Met) just last year. So why not promote both the so-called mass numbers as well as such songs? ã ¤ ã ¤ But I am happy that my song has become popular despite the lack of promotion. I guess I am lucky because the song was recorded as a part of the background vocals and was not even meant to be in the album. But at the last moment they had an after-thought because of some technical necessities and I recorded it afresh with some variations since it now had to go into the album. Know more about Vijay Prakash... http://www.screenindia.com/news/Coming-up-NEXT/397204/ <http://www.screenindia.com/news/Coming-up-NEXT/397204/> Krish.
