Neha Bhasin's 'Taara' creating Valentine's Day vibes

Singer Neha Bhasin, who has sung several Bollywood hits such as "Dhunki" and "Jag Ghoomeya" and independent singles like "Nai Jaana", started her journey as a pop singer to a popular playback in Bollywood. Neha Bhasin has come a long way in the music domain. The sultry voice from girl's band Viva has been enticing the nation not just in Hindi but also regional songs. As she talks about her latest song and more

Her journey started 19-years-ago and this is her 20th year. Neha says, "I started my career not as a playback singer but as a pop singer. I have sung in Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, Punjabi and then had a very established non film pop career as well, done Punjabi folk. It's been a great, adventurous journey and today as grown up I pat my back and I feel like I did well, I am doing well."

With her latest track "Taara", she seems to have found a perfect mix of both. Neha says, "The song is about the love of yester years. It's an old school romance, "aakho se aankhe milane wala pyar hai". It's not the metro love, it's actually the love that everybody craves for. I feel with "Taara", we created our own Yash Raj moment of being in the hills, but the shoot was done in Uttarakhand but you get a lot of himachali vibes through the song. We used Rabab, Tabla and beautiful instrumentation and composed by Sameeruddin and lyrics are very earthy and beautiful. The whole feeling of the song is basically love song as its season of love, its valentine's day so we just wanted to create that environment."

The song has also been incorporated into the ZEE5 original film, Lahore Confidential witnessed the singer's song, "Taara" give's an edge to the visuals we saw in the absolutely amazing thriller.

"They also wanted to release it around valentine's day so we just intended it like that but of course when we were shooting it, we were very happy that we were able to align it like that because it is a season of love and this will be a great song to be on people's love playlist. It relates to valentine's day because it is a pure love song. There is a lot of love and romance in the song so it's definitely very like, if you are not in love you will want to fall in love if you're in love you will be more in love with this kind of a song," adds Neha.

Neha believes that the song "Jag Ghoomeya" from Salman Khan-starrer 'Sultan' has helped her bag more successful songs. "I was doing a lot of good work sung a lot of award-winning songs for some reason I wasn't been able to grab consistent eyeballs in the film industry and "Jag Ghoomeya" did have that, the sound was very unique and Vishal Shekhar's composition with Sameer's production of the song of bringing my voice out like a folk singer, we were doing our folk music but we haven't experimented in the films. Thanks to Vishal Shekhar and Ali Abbas Zafar, Sameer and I were able to bring that song into the film music and that really grabbed everybody's eyeballs."

Explaining the difference between playback singing and pop singing, she said that the reason they are different is primarily because when you sing your own songs a lot of times its written by you or co-written by you and it comes more from a place of feeling than being a part of a scenario. While in playback singing you are actually an actor as a singer so you sing based on the character and the scenario...so it's very different expertise and both experiences are great. I personally find singing, song writing your own music, doing pop music or pop rock music non film music is more wholesome. Having said that I find playback singing very challenging, very adventurous and very exciting so I like both."

Neha feels that Bollywood industry is a male dominating industry. She says that she thinks it is a very sexist industry, male dominated and not just music industry but the entire film industry

She adds, "I think that this world is the survival of the fittest be it a man or a woman so sometimes women have to be a man in a man's world, it's important and the gender issue is not only the thing but also the present generation of remix, one label kind of ruling everything else and it's a lot of things but having said that that's life it's a jungle law so everybody has to make space for themselves and some do it hook, some do it crook."

According to Neha, her Modus operandi is very simple "If I'm not feeling the song I don't want to sing it. If I get the feeling, I will be able to get it down in the song which will touch the hearts of the audience." Neha has not been restricting herself just to sing the songs in Bollywood. Before beginning her career in the Bollywood she has also sang Tamil songs.

She adds, "It was simultaneous thing but very different industry but a very beautiful industry I love, I haven't sung in Tamil in a couple of years but initially I used to fly there a lot and sing a lot and it was really exciting the languages of course something that is alien to me which was a challenge but in telugu also I have sung a lot with Devi Sri Prasad and we have done overnight recordings in Chennai as he leaves there and I have toured him all over the US in 2014 so Yeah it's been exciting and recently started singing in Punjabi music industry as well"

Neha also believe that the pandemic brought a paradigm shift in the industry in the world and in the way people were looking at content, non-film content in general, whether it's music or OTT platform.

"Now we have sync licensing like we've done for Tara and Akashni in Lahore confidential is going to be the next big thing and for us being independent label to be able to do that was a big step so yeah I think there is huge shift that we have seen and it's a very positive shift so looking forward to what else is in the store," ends the "Jag ghoomeya" singer Neha.