Calling songs 'item' numbers sounds cheap: Ehsaan Noorani

Musician Ehsaan Noorani of hugely successful trio Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy says terming a song as an "item" number makes it sound "cheap".

The composers have given music lovers hit "item songs" like "Kajra re" and "Main aayi hoon UP, Bihar lootne", but Noorani doesn't like the genre to be called "item" numbers.

"Item is a bad word. It sounds cheap. You can call it a dance number. We don't make songs with scantily-dressed actresses in our mind. We just want people to dance to our songs," Noorani told IANS after a music workshop at the International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) Weekend and Awards being held here from June 5 to 7.

After "Kajra re", which came out a decade back, the trio hasn't released similar songs.

Is it because almost every Bollywood movie has an item song?

"We just follow scripts. That's why our sound and style changes from script to script, " said Noorani, who along with Shankar Mahadevan and Loy Mendonsa, gave the first trance Bollywood song "Koi kahe kehta rahe" to music lovers.

The musician, who is passionate about playing guitar, says most of the movies made during 1980s and 1990s were made "just for the heck of it".

"The art had gone out of it. So the music also suffered. Things started changing from '1942: A Love Story', then Karan Johar and Farhan Akhtar started making good movies. I think our sensibilities match with younger people," he said.

The artist, who has an advertising background, believes that there is a lot of pressure in making music for films.

"We need to maintain certain aesthetics and also keep in mind that the music we make is commercial and not what we like to listen to.

"The audience is growing. They listen to everything so, the pressure is more," he said.

Any album in the pipeline?

"We have been trying to come out with one since the last 18 years, but there is no time," said Noorani, who is working on music for films like "Katti Batti" and "Rock On 2".

"'Rock On 2' will have rock music, but it will be different from the first part," he said while talking about the film which will star Farhan.

(The writer's trip is at the invitation of the IIFA organisers. Natalia Ningthoujam can be contacted at natalia.n@ians.in)