Nasal Voice

Plethora of male nasal singers makes one wonder whether the era of perfect voice in playback singing is over. Earlier we had a Mukesh and later Kumar Sanu who lent variety to the music. But look at the music scene now. You have Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, Kailash Kher, Atif Aslam, Kumar Ganjawala, Himesh Reshamiya, Javed Ali who all have nasal voices. Others like Sukhwinder Singh, KK and Shankar Mahadevan too have a nasal tinge in their voices.

No doubt all of them are musically talented and have several hits to their credit. People don’t seem to care as long as they get a good song to listen even though the satisfaction may be short lived. I find that too many nasal voices sort of grate on the ears. One yearns for good clean voices of Sonu Nigam or Hariharan and they don’t sing often. Udit Narayanan has a refreshingly different voice, but is now past his best. South India’s best voices K J Yesudas and S P Balasubramaniam are also past their best. But surprisingly, there aren’t many nasal singers in this part of the country perhaps indicating that South Indians are less tolerant towards nasal voices.

It wasn’t like this before nineties. Apart from Mukesh no other nasal singer managed to hit the limelight. The fact that they never had good music director or lyricist to back them probably worked against their favour. Among the male singers, legendary K L Saigal had a nasal voice. I haven’t listened to all his songs. But music directors gave him songs that matched his voice. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Over sixty years after his death people still listen to his soft and soothing sad songs.

Mukesh started as a Saigal clone as there was voice similarity. But later found a niche of his own in sad songs aided by legendary music directors Roshan, Shankar Jaikishan, Salil Chaudhary and Kalyanji Anandji. The fact that Raj Kapoor chose him as his voice helped him immensely in his career. He was at his best in songs conveying pathos. He was the different voice along with Manna Dey , Talat Mehmood, Hemant Kumar when Mohammed Rafi and Kishore Kumar were the main singers. The music directors knew his voice range and gave him songs which he could render well.

After Mukesh died, his son Nitin Mukesh with a nasal voice couldn’t make the grade as an established singer. Perhaps, he couldn’t match the nasal baritone of his father. Narendra Chanchal with his high pitched nasal voice did shine briefly but did not last as his type of songs didn’t come often. Then there was a long gap till Kumar Sanu phenomenon happened. Kumar Sanu tried to imitate Kishore Kumar with a voice of Mukesh. His sad romantic songs went straight to the heart of listeners. His reign ended as Udit Narayanan took over.

I feel it is the advent of Rahman that unleashed the present nasal voice culture in the film playback music. The defining film was Dil Se in which Rahman sang with his nasal voice apart from giving Sukwinder Singh the break in his career with Chayya Chayya song. Rahman experimented with different singers and several of them crooned with a nasal flavour. It has to be mentioned that southern singers Benny Dayal and Naresh Iyer don’t belong to this category thankfully. In a way, Rahman has opened the floodgates for nasal singers that it is no longer a rarity but has become a common thing.

Today, people don’t have the patience to listen to a good melody. They want fast tracks. And music directors are only happy to give them what they want. The result is that the nasal singers are made to sing fast and high pitched songs. The listeners like it now. But the moot point is that will these songs have the staying power of the classics of Saigal and Mukesh, which are listenable even now after so many years.