Agnee -- MTV Unplugged Season 2

Why You Should Tune Into MTV Unplugged Season 2
by Mandovi Menon|Posted on Nov 2nd 2012| Rating

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They've been tripping on a successful first innings. Think over 41 million viewers, 3 lakh plus fans on Facebook and over 5 million views on YouTube. Now season 2 of the internationally famous but Indian edition of MTV Unplugged is back, bringing with it prodigious possibilities.

However, considering the tremendous nature of the first season, is it impossible for the creators to surpass the soaring expectations? We met with some of the music giants who will both perform and stitch this season together and we were pleased to discover that the end result is likely to be seamless. Here's why you need to tune into MTV Unplugged this year.

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"Unplugged means freedom." - A.R. Rahman

Rahman makes a comeback from a 15-year-long hiatus from television in the form of an Unplugged debut. The above-mentioned statement is his classic, Rahman-esque reasoning for it. While maintaining his usual reticence with the media, here's what we managed to extract from India's musical sensation about what we can expect from his episode.

For one thing, he's indulged in more self-expression than he's usually given creative license to express in this show. Considering it's all about capturing an artist in his/her truest and rawest essence, this is exactly what audiences can expect to see. Fresh arrangements of classic Rahman tracks, individually expressive songs and a 'focussed effort to turn some of his more popular numbers towards his own ideologies.' Basically, if Rahman was an onion, his Unplugged avatar would be the peeled version.

Sunidhi Chauhan, another stellar performer in the show this year, backed up the sentiment. "For me Unplugged means freedom to sing the way you want to. When you go to the recording studio you have to get everything straightened out for you, but here you have your own pace."

Though this would be enough to sell most Indian music lovers on the show, read on for further convincing.

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"There are only two kinds of music, good music and bad music." - Ranjit Barot

Unplugged, Barot as the curator of the show insists, is definitely of the good kind. Considering he's one of India's premier music arrangers, not to mention the most avant-garde, we already know he brings something special to the table.

He wants to bridge the dichotomy in the country when it comes to the music world, namely stop this segregation between film and non-film music.

Citing Rahman as an example he claimed he simply didn't differentiate between these types of music and focussed on making music he loves to make. In his own words, "Unplugged is everything, There are film songs that can be done in another way, like some songs have a tag of folk to it, those are its origins. I have to find that origin."

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"You guys as an audience have to be brave." - Lucky Ali

The ever-charismatic Lucky Ali will also be making a bit of a comeback with his episode on the show this season and this statement of his intrigued us a lot. It's been a while since we were challenged as an audience and if season 2 of Unplugged is promising to do that (just as season 1 already did) we're all ears.

As Ali went on to put it, "We need a dialogue with the people so in these episodes of MTV Unplugged you will get an insight into their personality which is stripped out from all gimmicks and other sound. So you are really going to get up close and personal with the artists."

Unless you tune in, this dialogues is going to be as one-ended as Ali singing to himself in the shower.

“The theme for this season on Unplugged is Mega Artists, Mega Hits." - Aditya Swamy, EVP and Business Head, MTV India.

This was to be the final nail in the coffin for any viewers-to-be who were still sitting on the fence. Swamy listed out names of the musical maestros who would be talking center stage in this season's MTV Unplugged and aside from Rahman, Chauhan and Lucky Ali, it will also showcase the talents of Kailash Kher, Shafqat Amanat Ali, Ash King, Agnee, Indus Creed and Ayushmann Khurana. Not too shabby a lineup, we think.

All in all, this is shaping up to be an unmissable season full of musical gems waiting to be uncovered for all the world to see.

Turn (your TV) on, tune in, drop out