A new generation lyricist
It was back in 1989, when a group of young boys formed a band named Octave, that Mahmud wrote about seven songs for them. Soon after this venture, he met Manam Ahmed who asked him to write a few numbers for his band Miles. Mahmud wrote Mishti hashi with a Rock n' Roll beat. With the final composition given by Manam Ahmed and performed by Hamin Ahmed, the song became a big hit. The following days witnessed the coming of songs like Asha, Dhup chhaya, Mounota of Warfaze, Bishshay jatra of Miles, Ankhi Alamgir's Tumi shudhu tumi, as well as a few more popular numbers belonging to Kaniz Shuborna and Mehrin.
MTV and Tara Bangla jointly telecast some Bangladeshi tracks on MTV regularly. Interestingly, all the songs of this venture have been written by Mahmud Khurshid-- Moyuri mon by Kaniz Shuborna, Abak sranto mon and Dekha hobey by Mehrin, Phiriye dao, Rhidoyhina, Dhiki dhiki, Jwala jwala and Neela by Miles. All these video songs were recorded and shot in Bombay.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. Mahmud Khurshid feels that standard songs are being composed even today, however little effort the musicians are making at it. He says that people with no background of music are performing nowadays, as a result they don't last long. The quality of music is thus going down.
According to Mahmud the visual of songs is very important and if a video of a song is presented properly it enhances the effect. 'Now it is the era of audio-visual effect in music, so there is no escape from it. But it is not right to make a video just for the sake of making it and of course the video should be story based,' says Mahmud. He feels that the singer must remember that the style, dress and the total ambience should suit the song. Four things are equally important to make a song popular and sustainable--lyric, tune, music composition and performers.
Mahmud believes that listeners should listen to more Bangla songs. 'Our listeners are too much inclined towards Hindi music,' regrets Mahmud. 'I suppose there is nothing wrong with that but they should also listen to modern Bangla songs.'
If the music industry can promote better music, the listeners will also listen to it. But the problem is the industry does not have a very clear idea of good music. 'Private channels should take extra initiative in this case,' he opines. 'Music videos should be telecast more through a separate music channel like the foreign ones that exist today. The names of lyricists should be there along with the names of the video directors.'
This year Mahmud Khurshid is planning to write lyrics for Mehrin; the title of the song is We love Dhaka. The song is about the heritage and the present situation of the city. Miles will release their new album Protiddhoni containing a song, a compilation of the lines from the popular songs of its previous albums. Mahmud has written the song and is hopeful about the album's success.