I didn't know what it was with this song, but it was everywhere. The movie was a resounding flop but 'Aashiq banaya aapne' was a major hit. It was in fact the top selling Hindi film soundtrack at that moment.
And I was sick of it.
There was this new trend of hit-songs from flop-films. Woh Lamhe was one such example - but that still was a catchy tune.
My personal favourite is Aashayein from Iqbal.
Kuch karne ki ho aas aas
Kuch armaan dil ke paas paas
Aashayein, aashayein.
Both the lyrics and the tune are fantastic. Of course, so was the film.
No escape
The reason why songs like Aashiq banaya aapne are inescapable is that not only do you hear it being played over and over on FM radio, there are folks who inflict it on you as their 'caller tune'. (What is known as a 'ringback tone' in many markets). Airtel launched Caller Tunes - they then expected it to be a small but significant market - around Rs 100 crore a year. Value-added services today (excl. SMS which also gets tagged onto this category) contribute some Rs 1000 crore to the kitty of operators - ringback tones, ringtones, wallpaper and games downloads. The reason ringback tones are such a huge hit? They are technology neutral. Of course, they are also a great way of finding out about the person - for example I heard 'Karma Chameleon' as the ringtone of one person which pretty much confirmed many of the things I thought about him. I don't know what to think with people who have MJ as their tone, and with someone who makes me endure 'Bheege bheege yaadein' doesn't deserve to be talked to. Then, Orange introduced sms tones.
I never thought people would pay 30 bucks a month for the pleasure of playing music instead of the regular 'tring tring' but who knew? Logic and reason don't operate in the mobile market, we otherwise kanjoos Indians will fork out small bits of cash for just about anything.
According to a report on the BSNL website
It is estimated that 20-25 per cent of the 56-million mobile subscribers in India are paying for ring-back tones and downloading ring tones. The 20-25 per cent growth every month again shows how popular such applications have become. People are willing to shell out nearly Rs 30 a month for ring-back tones, with Rs 15 for the initial download and Rs 9 for each ring tone download!
This explosive growth has contributed to the bottomline of operators in India, who are targeting 7 per cent of their total revenue from downloads in the next two to three years. The way it's making enough revenues (or profits whichever is apt) for the mobile service providers, don't think the song-for-ringtone scheme should gall us at all.
Coming back to the Irritant
But the song "aashiq banaya" was playing everywhere and everytime ..was irritating. and specially when they played the remix .. it sucked to the core. These days for a song to click, the lyrics must be meaningless, the voice pathetic, the raag totally distorted...that's their formula and we can't really blame them...There is a part of the youth audience who has no knowledge of music but which listens to it...And as history has seen it, these would pass...but undoubtedly, the everlasting ones are the melodies of yester years.
I have believed and always will that despite expert analysis which consitutes to 99 % of the causative factors in success, the 1% luck factor gets the better end of everything. Now just think about this--in a hostel where everyone was crazy 'about the song...and you get to hear it on every floor--finally took a stand when someone started playing it at 2:40am. It was everywhere, in the gym, at traffic jams, caller tunes, ringtones music shops. Why was the song so hypnotic?
While some may believe 'phone sirf baat karne ke liye hota hai', others obviously believe it's a jukebox. And aashiq banaya aapne is what gets their booty shakin'... Sigh!
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