Commando’s music album was way ahead of its time: Mannan Shaah

While creating the soundtrack of Commando 10 years ago, I was 25. Together we had a vision to put together a soundtrack which would sound totally unique and different from the sounds that existed back then and the only way to make it sound distinctive was to take the Live Music route. Almost 90% of my sound in the album has been recorded Live.

Back then in 2013, digital sounds was an in-thing. People were fascinated by software plugins and digital synth sounds etc. But here is where we made a difference. From rhythm to strings to various types of ambient sounds, we recorded them all Live. For instance in our song ‘Lutt Jawaan’, which was arranged by the legendary music arranger and drummer Ranjit Barot, the whole song is recorded 100% live.

We recorded legendary flutist Navin Kumar, he created the sounds of the Koyal bird, he played an Armenian folk instrument called the ‘Duduk’, Ranjit sir himself had layered Live drums on the track and theres much more to it. Even with our other songs like ‘Saawan Bairi’, ‘Lena Dena’ and ‘Mungda’, all of them were nearly recorded 90% Live. The reason to record these songs Live was to keep a certain earthiness and ruralness in the script alive through music and thats what ultimately gave a certain dynamism to the overall sound of the film. It certainly helped our background score composer Prasad Sashte also in giving a certain distinctive sound in terms of the BGM of the film.

It also at the same time helped our director Dilip Ghosh and our cinematographer Sejal Shah envision their scenes in a large way. And eventually the cinematography of Commando became the talking point of the film and I recall even today that so many filmmakers and cinematographers especially in the wedding planning industry have used Saawan Bairi as their reference point to shoot their pre-wedding videos. There are hundreds of pre-wedding video covers made with Saawan Bairi as their song. Couples from all over the country literally have gone to shoot their pre-wedding videos at the famous White dessert in Kutch where the song was originally shot. And Vidyut Jammwal and Pooja Chopra look stunning together in the song.

Another distinctive aspect about Commando’s music was its song situations and picturisations. What I felt challenging and I love taking it up as a challenge was that two of our songs ‘Lena Dena’ and ‘Mungda’ were filmed on the antagonist of the film. Special mention for Jaideep Ahlawat who played his part brilliantly well in these songs. The whole idea about filming songs on the villain of the film itself was so unique back then and I don’t think till today anyone has ever thought about it. So few of these aspects make Commando’s music album very different and that is why I keep saying that it was way ahead of its time.