We have seen actors like Jr NTR, Nithiin, Dhanush and Siddharth as well as Bollywood’s Alia Bhatt and Shraddha Kapoor croon for their films frequently. The latest addition to this brigade is Trisha who’ll render the theme song in Nayaki . Some time back, even legends like Amitabh Bachchan, Kamal Haasan and Chiranjeevi sang in some of their films. So the actor-turns-singer phenomenon is certainly not new; it’s the reason and quality of singing that has changed.
A far cry from the days of S. Varalakshmi, Bhanumati and Chittor Nagaiah when it was mandatory for actors to render their own songs. In fact, a lot of them were trained classical music singers. Those days, the actor-singers made their acting chops work well in tandem with their accomplished singing. So from being the mainstay of a film, through introducing a novel aspect of their favourite star, songs by actors have become tools to market the film. Perhaps it all started with Dhanush’s ‘Kolaveri Di’which went viral with 10 million hits on YouTube. The catchiness of a tune, the fact that a celebrity did it with ease and the way it went viral all over the world, took everyone by surprise. Though a lot of actors in Telugu films later took cue from this trend, it was attempted by Jr NTR ( Adhurs , Rabhasa and now for Nannaku Prematho ), Siddharth ( Bommarillu, Love Failure, Oh My Friend ), Nithya Menen ( Ala Modalaindi, Jabardasth, Ishq ) before the trend got persistent. More recently Nithiin came up with a women-bashing number in Ishq , Nikhil and Swati Reddy (who also sang for 100% Love though she didn’t act in it) tried their best in Swamy Ra Ra and Lakshmi Manchu did her bit with Dongaata . Actors like Manoj ( Potugadu ), Ravi Teja ( Power ) in the Telugu film industry and Tamil actor Vijay ( Thuppaki, Puli, Anna ) too join the list. The abilities of Shruti Haasan, meanwhile as a live performer, singer and an actor go without saying.
In Bollywood, equivalents Shraddha Kapoor ( Ek Villain, Haider ), Alia ( Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania, Shaandar, Highway ) and Salman Khan ( Kick, Hero ) have done well to add to the actor-occasionally-turned-singer craze.
Has this reduced the actors’ song, into nothing more than a marketing tool? Films are made to make money, but isn’t this bluntly putting ‘what sells’ segment over quality? Is the quality of a specialist singer being ignored? Clearly, the attention that the particular number warrants gets an edge when it’s a celebrity rendering it.
Then, there is the issue of quality. Celebrities enjoy a certain sense of leverage on matters of quality, mostly because of the curiosity.
MR Sunny, composer of Swamy Ra Ra and Uyyala Jampala , says that there’s no question of wondering if a specialist singer would have done the job better; composers often tune a song knowing it will be sung by the lead actor. “For Swamy Ra Ra , the idea was to prepare a promotional song. Swati Reddy already was an assured singer and I put a word to the director Sudheer if Nikhil could join in too. The result was a pleasant surprise and there was nothing forced about it,” adding that the song did add up to the reach of the film.
The common listener, unless he/she is a real music enthusiast, will not raise quality issues when a star is singing, mostly because it’s a one-off attempt to entertain. “There’s additional colour when an actor takes up singing. The chance of it attracting more attention is one calculation the film industry believes in,” says music director Raghu Kunche.
