#77 O Sanam
Album : Sunoh (1996)
In the amazing era of Indi Pop in the 90s, we got exposed to so many new voices. A new world opened up to us where we realised we can’t benchmark every voice against a Lata or Rafi or Asha or Kishore. The legends are in a different league, but there are other precious gems that we must appreciate for their uniqueness.
The Indi Pop era was most fun and exciting, the music industry was experimenting with new sounds, music, fusion and new voices.
Lucky Ali’s ‘O Sanam’ released in 1996 as the main song of his album Sunoh. An album he self produced and got his friends to write the lyrics and direct the video after being rejected by popular media houses. BMG crescendo agreed to release the album but the video had to be produced by Lucky himself.
The rest as they say is history. The album became one of the fastest selling albums in Indi Pop history. O Sanam stayed on MTV Asia charts for 60 weeks and Lucky won many awards for this single and album. His popularity skyrocketed and eventually resulted in him giving playback to two brilliant songs in Hrithik Roshan’s iconic debut film Kaho Na Pyaar Hain. Ek Pal Ka Jeena created havoc when it released and that deserves a separate post. And before Lucky Ali became ‘Bollywood’ popular - we lucked out seeing him perform at a college fest, exactly a year before Kaho Na Pyaar Hain.
Back to O Sanam - the music video is one of the most beautiful ones from the Indi Pop era. Lucky in whites and blues walking through the Egyptian desert reminiscing his lost love. The song itself has minimalistic instruments and the lyrics, the composition and Lucky Ali’s soothing voice - perfection!
We fans lapped it up and the humming part of this song got ingrained in our system. It’s been 3 decades and it’s still fresh in the head.