He is the bankable one. He is the go-to person for most good directors when they want killer soundtracks. He is Pritam Chakraborty who started his career almost two decades ago, and is now the top name in the music industry, sitting there alongside the likes of Amit Trivedi and AR Rahman.
And while this year has been full of accolades for him, same has not been the case for the movies that featured his music. First came Raabta which fetched rather poor box office collections, and then came Tubelight which became Salman’s biggest flop in recent times. Next was the much hyped Jagga Jasoos, and the trend continued with Jab Harry Met Sejal.
That being said, one thing that was common for all four of these films was they featured good music, and better yet, most of their songs became chartbusters. So while accolades were flowing in droves towards Pritam, very few were going towards the film.
When you come to analyze the reason for the same, a point gets proved. The myth among producers that good music albums always ensure a hit film, gets completely broken. Among the four films that Pritam gave music for this year, only one has received great reviews – Jagga Jasoos.
The rest have suffered on the merit of their content and nothing else. As for Jagga Jasoos, it’s the kind of experiment the audience wasn’t quite ready for.
But none of this will affect the career prospects of Pritam, that’s for sure. A big threat to his career however still remains his habit of copying songs from lesser-known artists from around the world. This year too, it came to light that the track Galti Se Mistake was pretty similar to the song Inténtalo by a Ball MTY.
This something Pritam refuses to acknowledge, let alone stop. Allegations of plagiarism continue to haunt him, but he still manages to belt out spectacular music. It’s at times a dilemma whether to like his songs or not, because you never know when they might turn out to be plagiarised.
Despite this, Pritam continues to astonish us with this original songs. Hawayein from Jab Harry met Sejal still holds a spot on the charts, and so does Galti Se Mistake. It’s really a surprise to see him going so incredibly strong despite the many controversies that have engulfed his songs over the years. The talented composer is on a much deserved break at the moment, and his next music will come out next year in the form of Race 3.
Let us wait and watch whether this film manages to break the curse that has hit his films this year.
