Entertainment
Voice casting has major role to play in a song: Amitabh Bhattacharya
Mumbai : As the language of Bollywood music is changing and the celebration of unusual voices is becoming a new trend, National Award-winning lyricist Amitabh Bhattacharya says the right voice casting is very important to justify a song.
“Voice casting has a major role to play in a song — whether it is on composition or lyrics. When you assign any song to a singer, it is not only about singing a song but also about how the singer’s rendition takes the song to the next level. It is a music director’s call,” Bhattacharya told IANS here.
“That is how sometimes some unconventional voice works for a song. Though I wanted to become a singer, now I understand how my voice can work for some songs and not for all,” he added.
Starting his career with films like “Aamir” and earning popularity with “Dev D” where music composer Amit Trivedi was instrumental in making him pen the songs over singing, Bhattacharya believes that it was the right decision to shift his interest from singing to writing.
“Yes, it was a situational decision where Amit told me to write songs for him, but I think I am a better lyricist than a singer, he said.
Talking about vulgar lyrics in Bollywood songs, Bhattacharya says the beauty of using quirky words has gone down.
“It has become a child’s play now. When I wrote ‘Emotional atyachar’, the scenario was different. That is why using quirky lyrics worked then and listeners enjoyed such a song. Nowadays every other song is written on such rhythm — like a ‘night-light-bright-tight’ and it is a song! Therefore, everyone is becoming a lyricist. But what they are not understanding is that there is a way to do it,” he said.
Bhattacharya says “one has to justify the emotion of the song while using words” when it comes to bringing back the beauty in lyrics.
“Take these three songs — ‘Ae dil hai mushkil’, ‘The break up song’ and ‘Bulleya’. Though all the characters speak in Hinglish and urban, I did not use any English word to articulate the unrequited love on the title track, rather simple Hindi.
“On the other hand, ‘The break up song’ is a quirky one, though it is about break up. Now ‘Bulleya’ demanded such Urdu words to give a Sufiyana touch,” he said, adding: “As a lyricist, when you understand these nuances, you won’t use such quirky lyrics like a child’s play, but intelligently.”
He stressed on the importance of composition and sound production for a song — saying that it’s not entirely a lyricist’s responsibility.
“We are living in an age where listeners are familiar with a certain kind of sound. Therefore, from the instrumental arrangement to the rendition of the song, everything matters. As a lyricist, melody drives me to write a song, so yes the foundation of a song is the chemistry between lyrics and melody.”
Entertainment
Casino Days Reveal Internal Data on Most Popular Smartphones
International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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