X began as an academic project by students of a University in Paris in 1996. Some time before this happened, some students from the Student Association of the institute had once come back to the college drunk, with a Y they found on the road, subsequently starting a collection of Y. And when X was started they decided to use Y as their logo. ID X. I wouldn’t specifically have any points for identifying Y, coz if you get one you would naturally get the other.

Answer:

Y was a traffic cone, and X is obviously VideoLan Project, more famous for its VideoLan Client Media Player, or VLC Media Player whose logo as you would have noticed, is a traffic cone.

One crack – Arun A S, who incidentally has contributed today’s question.

Since everyone is in a festive mood, here is a sitter for you. ID the two gentlemen. The one on the right should present no problem at all as we see it. Neither, for that matter, should the left.

Answer in comments.

Answer:

The guy on the right is David Gilmour and the guy playing the rhythm guitar is Douglas Adams, the occasion being his 42nd birthday when David Gilmour, his friend, invited him onto the stage during their performance at Earls Court in London in 1994. Douglas Adams was a great fan of Floyd and his fictional band Disaster Area from H2G2 is supposed to be inspired from them.

Surprisingly, just three cracks – Easwar, Arun and Abhishek

After a brief hiatus in the ASAD series, today we present you with the first song a day from within the subcontinent, Bullah Ki Jaana, a Sufi song written by one of the greatest Sufi poets who ever lived, Baba Bulleh Shah. While Bulleh Shah’s philosophical poems have found their way into popular music a lot of times, a prominent one being Chaiyya Chaiyya from Dil Se, Bullah Ki Jaana remains one of his most eminent compositions.
Bulleh Shah’s compositions have always been known for their simplicity and profundity, a prime reason for their immense popularity among sufi enthusiasts, and there couldn’t be a better exemplification of these qualities than Bullah Ki Jaana. In this poem he reflects upon the origin of mankind by questioning his own identity. And the translation of the lyrics which include mention of mosques, the Vedas, Moses etc. provide testimony to the fact that Bulleh Shah’s influences pan across religions and faiths.
Popular cover versions of Bullah Ki Jaana there have been three, those of Junoon, the Wadali Brothers and Rabbi Shergill with my preference increasing in that order. To be honest Junoon’s version of Bulla Ki Jaana, which came out in 1999 as part of their most acclaimed album Parvaaz, has always struck me as less impressive than many of their other compositions. On the other hand the Wadali brothers did a beautiful classical version of the song (in raag Shivranjani) as part of their album Aa Mil Yaar (Call of the Beloved). But the credit for Bulla Ki Jaana attaining the scale of recognition that it has in India, goes to the sardar from Delhi named Rabbi Shergill. When Rabbi sat to tune the poem for his debut album Rabbi, influences from his idol Bruce Springsteen kept creeping up, and the result was a brilliant folk-rock fusion version of the song. That combined with a well-shot video meant that Rabbi Shergill became an overnight star and Bulla Ki Jaana was suddenly on everyone’s lips, in spite of being written in a language that not many could understand.
It may be true that Rabbi Shergill couldn’t quite capitalise on the success he tasted with his debut album, but if there is one thing that would keep him from going away from people’s minds it would be this masterpiece of his, that has today become the identity of Bulla Ki Jaana for most people at least within India. Here’s wishing once again all our readers a very happy and prosperous Diwali! Enjoy the videos of the three cover versions.

Happy Diwali to all our readers!!

A slightly non-workoutable question today. The four guitarist share something with three other Guitar Gods. What?

Answer:

The Yardbirds. The four people in the pic are Anthony “Top” Topham, Chris Dreja, John Idan and Gypie Mayo in that order, and they share with Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck as having served as lead guitarists for the band. The list is of course not restricted to these seven, and has a few more in the lineup.

Just one crack for this one, and that is by Easwar. So he gets one point.

Enough clues in the pic. Tribute to??

Answer in comments please.

Answer:

This is indeed Luciano Pavarotti, the reference being to the white handkerchief that he was commonly associated with. 9 people got it right, all of them getting a point each. The people are:

Kevin, Rosh, Atul, Nirad, Arun, Debasish, Easwar, Venkata and Unni.

What is the significance of the scene? Rather what follows the scene?

Answer in comments.

Answer:

The scene is from Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid, and what follows the scene is Bob Dylan’s Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door. Dylan also acted in the movie doing a character called Alias. You can watch the whole scene inclusive of the song here.

Rightly cracked by Easwar, Vivek and Nirad who get a point apiece.

In spite of that heard-before feel that Shukran Allah carries about it, there is something about Salim-Sulaiman’s score (I read in some places that this one is done by SEL, and the song does have a SEL signature all over it, but not sure if the news is true) that would get you hooked to it. May be it is the mellow arrangement, may be it’s the sweet rendition by Sonu and Shreya with a superb backing from Salim – which, I am not exactly sure. What I am sure of though is that the song provides the ideal opening to a soundtrack that gets better as it goes along. Dua which comes up next, with its rhythm template a la songs like Yun Hi Chala Chal and similarly oriented lyrics, has a travelogue-ish mood. The composers do a delectable infusion of sufi elements into the song and the choice of vocals couldn’t have been better, Kailash Kher and Sukhwinder Singh carrying out their part with relish, plus Aiman’s wonderful cameo at the sargam in the second interlude. Marianne D’Cruz’s English portion could have been done without though.

Salim Merchant gets to centrestage with the devotional Ali Maula, and does a decent job of rendering the dolefully tuned track. Though not exactly a tune you would be humming around much, the haunting effect of the arrangement would have you come back to this song. The impact is kind of ruined in the remix however. But the mindblowing track that follows next more than makes up for that foible. The first and indeed the best instance I remember of hearing an erotic track with heavy classical elements in it is ARR’s spellbounding Hai Rama set in raag Puriya Dhanasri (Panthuvarali in Carnatic), and it is probably the similarity in the raag (is it the same raag, I wonder) and the selection of a classical arrangement that brought to my mind this track while listening to the sensuous Rasiya. While Hai Rama was characterized by a frenetic usage of the instruments, Salim-Sulaiman choose to take the opposite path for Rasiya, giving minimal instrumentation for most part, and the effect is, quite simply put, goosebumps. And the rendition by Shruti Pathak as if in an undertone, what singing! And the composers’ parting shot comes in the form of the rip-roaring rock number Kurbaan Hua sung by – you guessed it – Vishal Dadlani! The fleeting resemblance to 8×10 Tasveer‘s Nazaara Hai notwithstanding, Vishal’s fervid rendition and Salim-Sulaiman’s clever orchestration make for a gripping four-odd minutes.
With an outstanding score encompassing an eclectic mix of genres, Salim Merchant and Sulaiman Merchant once again prove that they are a force to be reckoned with in the composing arena. If only they were more consistent in their compositions..

Music Aloud’s rating – 8/10

Recommended tracks – Rasiya, Dua, Kurbaan Hua

Prior to the untimely death of pop legend Michael Jackson, he had planned a concert tour comprising of 50 concerts called “This is it”. He was also planning to release an album called “This is it” which had a single by the same name. The single, however, has run into a controversy which has cost his successors a lot. Just hours after the single was released, it was noted that the tune was originally composed by an obscure Puerto Rican Singer Sa Fire in 1991. Moreover, the co-writer of the song Paul Anka, famous for writing the Frank Sinatra hit “My Way”, threatened to sue Jackson’s estate for proper credits and share of royalties. The matter was settled by giving Anka fifty percent of the royalties from the song. The royalty is bound to fetch Paul Anka a lot of money considering the hype created around the song.

The song was actually written in 1983 by Jackson and Paul Anka for an album that Anka was working on but the two split and the song was never released. In 1991, the Puerto Rican singer Sa Fire recorded a version of the song titled “I never heard”.  Jackson had recently recorded the song for his album/concert and it was released on Monday without giving due credits to Anka. The song is available for free listening on MJ’s website.

The recordings of the preparation and rehearsals for the concert are being released under a documentary film titled “Michael Jackson’s This is it”. The movie is scheduled to release on the 28^th October and will run in US theatres for two weeks. 3-D and IMAX versions of the movie are also scheduled to release. Not surprisingly, flocks of people are gathering around movie theatres to buy tickets for early screening of the movie.

A comparison of the two songs

The past 12 days have seen an amazing response to our new section – Song for the Asking. We would like to thank everybody for participating and expect similar response (even better) in the future. Do let us know your feedback about the quiz at [email protected].

Here are the points so far:

Congratulations everyone!

A seemingly complicated but actually pretty simple question.

X is a multi-talented personality who was considered for a role (in all probability the lead role) in a hit movie of the late 80s. X was a part of a recent movie in which he had parodied a poem Y written during the freedom struggle and was made popular by a freedom fighter A. X had also written the lyrics for another movie by the same director whose music was composed by W. Y was also used in another movie which had used A as a character and whose music was composed by Z. Identify X,Y,Z and W. (0.25 each)

Answer:

X is Piyush Mishra who was reportedly considered for Maine Pyaar Kiya. And the recent movie he was a major part of is obviously Gulaal where he sang a version of Sarfaroshi Ki Tamanna (Y), made popular by Bhagat Singh (A). Another movie by Anurag Kashyap which had lyrics by Piyush Mishra was Black Friday which had music done by Indian Ocean (W). And the other movie we were referring to which used Sarfaroshi Ki Tamanna was The Legend of Bhagat Singh which had music scored by A R Rahman (Z).

Points:

Rosh, Easwar – 1

Jayesh – 0.5

Nirad – 0.25