Sounds of 2012 in Bangladesh

Sounds of 2012

Faizul Khan Tanim writes on the many different audio sounds that were LOUD last year and governed our generally arid music scene

There’s a track called ‘Adhek Ghumey’ in Ornob’s Rabindra Shangeet album. Considering Ornob’s classical training and his ingenious efforts behind this CD’s arrangement, the song can be interpreted as something of an anthem for the country because the words of Tagore are involved with this nation and our Bengali psyche in a symbolic way. Other songs ‘Kotha Hotey Baje’, ‘Dhonilo Ahobaan’ and ‘Rakho Rakhore’  has given us sounds that is magnetic and forward-looking, intriguing and driven, with hugely varied rhythms and melodies.

However, the absolute magical vocals that became a trademark of Ornob from exemplary albums like ‘Chaina Bhabish’ and ‘Hok Kolorob’, for the most part in this compilation, shed lights in favor of a statement – Ornob can sing better. But eventually, this man-machine combination enhanced the songs emotionally and made them sound nothing short of alluring. With dense and beautiful string arrangements by the singer/composer, the varied and positively radical, yet peaceful sound of Ornob oozes out of speakers with thoughts of tranquil and love.

And then, shifting from the soothing sound towards roars of thunder, ‘reality bites’ riffs, raging drumming sound, pompous lyrics and all that is synonymous with the phrase ‘angry rock music’...a colossal compilation of 64 songs in a set of four discs, Hatiar by Isha Khan Duray, was one of the best-selling albums of 2012.

One band to be precise, Karnival, who has a song in Hatiar, also came out with their own studio album ‘Attyotshorgo’ (Self Tribute). Capturing all the essence of haunting melody like Sound Garden and Radiohead, dark sarcasm in lyrics like the early 90’s grunge bands and featuring gripping tunes of atmospheric intensity like The Beatles and some times Pink Floyd, this album was one of the supreme sounds of 2012. The album shows that rock still has hope from the wrath of supermarket, cheesy, uncooked grilled chicken ‘electronica pop’ and the song ‘Bhognomonoshkota’ will blow anyone’s mind be in hallucination or not. Not just Karnival, few names from Hatiar, like Cryptic Fate and Breach are scheduled to bring out their own studio albums in 2013 and if couple of promising bands from Hatiar can properly kick in, this year, maybe the fans will twist, shout and head bang as well.

2012 will probably be remembered as the year we lost a lot of intellectuals, artistes and big names in the culture scene of the country. A pall of gloom descended over the country last year when we lost one of the significant writers of both Bengal, Humayun Ahmed. He was a brilliant lyricist apart from storyteller, novelist, film director, academic. A tribute music album ‘Humayun Ahmed Shoron-e’ from the record label Sangeeta was released. This compilation is made from Humayun’s penned well-known songs of anthemic proportion from different drama and telefilms. This album is probably one of the higest selling, if not the most, albums of last year.

We Bangladeshis love our language and as a matter of fact, love our Bengali psyche even more. The songs in this album has all the elements of rural and urban outbursts. We decided to remember Humayun through his creations of unrivalled word wizardry. Because his words will linger on amidst our everyday emotions, monsoon rains; yellow Panjabis and anytime our world gets flooded by the luminescent silver moon light. He is the crescent prince of Bangladeshi literary world and his legacy will live on through his books, movies, drama serials and most importantly, MUSIC.

The year 2012 also belonged to Arefin Rumey, Habib, Kazi Shuvo, Kona, rock band Warfaze, sound track of the film Television, Bappa Mazumder, the rock compilation Hatiar and many more. But as Bappa had an agenda with his GO GREEN campaign and named his album ‘Bechey Thako Shobuj' comprising some thoughtful tracks with energized tunes or Warfaze, who tried to make a very decent comeback with their studio album ‘Shotto’, most others disregarded the beauty of ornated compositions and believed in the fact that they can do about anything, ranging from inserting Bengali lyrics in structures of Bollywood beats and sounds up to creating silly music to give cheap thrills. 

Let us not forget that plagiarised music as opposed to creativity and its concepts is massively annoying. Copied tunes seems to embarass both the potential of artistic creativity and the composer’s responsibilities. This is one of the reasons why the philosophical significance of musical plagiarism deserves to be discussed in open forums because, a good mindset will always give good music and that is what we live for.

*This article is first published in The Independent's Weekend Mag, Jan 04 2012 - http://www.theindependentdigital.com/index.php?opt=view&page=45&date=2013-01-04