Amit Trivedi and Badshah meet for the very first time on the sets of Grey Goose presents TapeCast Season 2. During the conversation, the two musical maestros discussed their views on Bollywood's remix trend. Edited excerpts below:
Badshah: What do you think about remakes? Please be honest. Then I'll also be honest about it
Amit: I really don't like them.
Badshah: Why?
Amit: Because I think it's lame. There's nothing exciting about it.
Badshah: It's lame as an artist to remake?
Amit: There are some remakes which are done nicely. I think Aankh Marey was nicely done. Tanishq (Bagchi) did that really well. So sometimes some songs are better than the original. But I'm against this trend of remaking or rehashing old songs. Yeh cheez se sirf do hi cheez nikalke aa rahi hai Badshah Bhai – either the composers today are not capable or talented enough anymore to create an original song. Or if that's not the case the other option is that the makers – the producers and labels – have lost the judgement of gaging the right tunes.
Badshah: But if you think like a producer and you're about to produce a film and putting in a lot of money, you'll try to have safety factors. Kya woh justified hai?
Amit: No, not at all
Badshah: Because you're in this industry that's about art?
Amit: It is about art and playing it safe is no fun, but yaha par risk nahi lena hai kisi ko. It's playing it safe but to what level? And that irritates me because I've never played it safe.
Badshah: Would you ever do a remake?
Amit: Sir I have done one under pressure. Halka Halka Suroor Hain from Fanney Khan
Badshah: Oh that was really bad! (laughs)
Amit: I just did it for Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra. I told him 'I don't do this and I don't want to do this but I'm only doing it for you'. Pehli aur aakhri galti uske baad nahi.
Badshah: Lag raha tha apne dil se nahi kiya hoga
Amit: Aap bataiye, I want to know your views on remixes
Badshah: So some of them are good. Like Aankh Marey I loved. But some of them are really bad and it hurts when they are being played by our beloved audience. But again you can't blame anyone
Amit: Yeah you can't blame anyone, perception wohi aa raha hai, jo normal audience hai, uske dimag main yahi perception hai ki Bollywood sirf remakes banaata hai. Even the makers are probably not happy about it.
Amit: Nobody is, I'm sure even Tanishk isn't happy about it
Badshah: Yeah I talked to Tanishk, he said he doesn't want to do it but you know the circumstances are such, even the labels somewhere are not happy about it but this is the trend.
Amit: In a big way, yeh trend chal raha hai. Ek do saal aur chalega
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Catch the full episode here: