Playback singer Chandana Dixit is basking in the glory after her recently released chartbuster, Husn Hai Suhana, from Coolie No 1, is topping the charts. Both original as well as recreated version of the song is sung by her. “The song has now got a contemporary feel to it as it had the scope to blend well in today’s time. The good thing is that they (makers) didn’t try to mess up with the melody and kept it like it was,” Chandana says.
Recalling her experience of recording the original song, Chandana elatedly mentioned, “The song was my debut in playback singing so it was too special. After this, I sang more songs for Anand-Milind (music composer duo) like Sheher Ki Ladki and Chumma Chumma.” Further sharing an anecdote, Chandana points out, “By the time this song was brought in, the film was complete but they wanted a catchy number. Govinda and Karisma Kapoor were actually practicing while we were recording the song. They did an all-night shoot for the song and soon, the promos were out. And my life completely changed within a week of it.”
Varun Dhawan and Sara Ali Khan in the new version of the song |
Interestingly, the recreated version has been picturised on Sara Ali Khan. Ask her how she felt recording the song for a new face, the singer quips, “It’s just a different feeling because when you hear the old song on a new face, it takes a little time to get used to. It was strange in the beginning, but then it starts to grow on you. The effort was to recreate it and the song got a new life.”
With ‘Husn Hai Suhana’, Chandana has collaborated with Tanishk Bagchi, who is known to deliver some hit remakes of popular songs. About the remake of her song now, Chandana says it shows the power of older melodies, which had a lot more heart and soul in them. “If any composition has a value that can manage to touch people, it will have the quality to draw everyone. Makers too want to pull out something that is in people’s hearts and merge it in tunes of today’s times. The remake culture is because people want to listen to old songs with newer techniques as we have gone technically far ahead with time,” she adds. Nonetheless, there has been a change in the recording scene since the ’90s, especially with content becoming very lean on OTT platforms, which hardly have any scope for playback singers.
Albeit, Chandana believes the idea of music in films or any content is engraved in Indians and every “Bollywood film is a musical for us.”
