CHENNAI: Some love cricket, others music. A few have combined their love for both to create songs dedicated to the ongoing ICC Cricket World Cup 2011. A host of unofficial songs on cricket are flooding the Internet and a few have got numerous hits and downloads.
"Friends have been calling up to say we did a good job with 'Abke le aa oo'," says Bangalore-based management student Bruce Obenin. He directed a full-fledged music video with the help of classmates Angad Singh, Supriya Kumar and Bala and released it online last week.
Bruce and his friends were sitting around and discussing how to cheer for the Indian cricket team and join in the World Cup celebrations. "We composed and recorded the song in a studio. When it came to the video, we decided to shoot on location as most videos on youtube had just old cricket footage," he says.
For Chennai-based part-time musicians Eshwar Ravishankar and Deepesh AK, it was a challenge to get all their friends to ready 'Jeet Ki Junoon'. "All of us have two passions - cricket and music, but we are scattered across the world," says Eshwar, who is preparing for the Common Admission Test.
Once they decided to do a song, Sajeev in Mumbai wrote the lyrics, Eshwar composed and Deepesh sang it. They got lead guitarist Anoop Menon in France and back-up vocalists Kuhu in Mumbai and Tara Balakrishnan in the US to record their portions and send them to Eshwar for the final mixing at his house. Once Vinod KV created a video, it was released online on February 22.
"We have got close to 1,000 hits on youtube. The song is also listed on Airtel's Hello Tunes list," says Vinod.
Not everyone is on a tight budget. A few like 'Play! For The Game' are mega collaborations. "Since the World Cup is happening in Asia, we decided to make a multi-lingual song with artistes from five different Asian countries," writes Salim Parvez, president of Bangla Youth Association, Dubai, on a website.
Another song, 'Jaago Re' from Bangladesh has become widely popular. "We made the song for the Twenty20 World Cup around two years ago," says Shaikh Shaijad Matthew Islam, head of Profusion Records. "So we kept it for the Bangladesh team for the ODIs." The patience paid off. "On February 1, we released our song for free over the Internet and to all local FM and Bangladeshi online radio stations," says Matthew. "We have got more than 2 lakh hits on soundcloud.com and approximately 1 lakh downloads. Caller tune adoption has also been strong," he says.
Eashwar and friends are singing for India. "We can't get on to the field and play for them. But this is our way of showing our solidarity for the Indian team," says Eashwar.
