Clinton Cerejo, who has composed the music for Kartik Aaryan’s latest OTT release, Freddy, recently shared on social media that his work was wrongly credited to someone else in the film’s reviews. Calling it out, the music composer said that it was not okay to attribute the background score to someone else and negate months of hard work done by the entire music department.

Speaking to Bombay Times, Clinton said, “My post was not intended to target any one individual. The point of the post was to highlight the larger problem where critics sometimes credit the person who has done one or two songs as the film’s scorer.”

Clinton said, “This doesn’t happen abroad. Billie Eilish composed the opening credits song in the Bond film No Time To Die, but was the music credit of the film given to her because of that? Of course not! The credit goes to Hans Zimmer, who has done the background score. He is the film’s composer. You cannot attribute the entire music credit of the whole film to someone who has just composed for a few minutes over someone who has done it for over 100 minutes.”

Clinton feels that most of the time, background scores are treated like the second cousin of songs in the Hindi film music industry. “Today everything is content-driven, and the musical element of a film is an essential part. The background score really pushes a film. People are realizing that when a film works, it works because of the sound. Of course, songs too are important when it comes to a film, but 50% of the film experience is the background score and the sound design. These are the elements that are there throughout the film,” he added.

Clinton is not the only one who feels strongly about the issue. A number of composers agree with him. We spoke to a few of them and here’s what they had to say:

Composer-singer Amaal Mallik said, “If you pull out the songs, maybe the film can still survive, but if you pull out the background score, the film will not be able to stand at all! In Christopher Nolan’s Batman (The Dark Knight), if you remove the score (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) by Hans Zimmer, certain serious scenes may look comical. Everyone has both worked in synergy to create that intense soundscape and that’s what makes it great. You cannot disregard the musicians, the music team, the music supervisors, the sound engineers, the background score composers — all of us together make the sound of a film.”

Salim Merchant, of the Salim-Sulaiman composer duo, who have been creating BG music since 1997and have worked in around 100 films, strongly feels that the BG scorers should be given due credit. “The background score of a film is actually the unseen character in the film. It plays quite an important role and it truly makes or breaks the film. So many times a film has succeeded because of the BGM, which helps build the story and take it ahead. It also helps in making the audience ‘feel the film’ in its true sense. It is important to give the BG score the main credit in the film. I also feel that it should be on the posters. In the West, the person who does the background score is credited first as music by so-and-so and after that credits for the songs are given. Background score is the heart of any film,” said Salim.

Pritam, who worked on Ayan Mukerji’s Brahmastra Part One: Shiva for two years, is miffed at the way some film critics have wrongly credited Simon Franglen instead of him for the score. “Simon was

initially supposed to be a part of this, but that never happened eventually. We began working on the background music of the film in early 2019. I did the score, and he was in no way even remotely a part of the background score of Brahmastra. Yet, my name was not mentioned in many reviews, only his was. In fact, it was a long battle to get even Wikipedia to correct this mistake. They only corrected it recently,” he said.

Songs and background score are very different from each other, say composers. There are technicalities involved while giving background music, which is not always the case in composing songs. Ehsaan Noorani explained, “I wouldn’t say that one is easier and the other isn’t because they both are completely different disciplines of music. For a background score, you need to be mature and very objective. You can’t use a piece just because you like it. The main thing about the background score is to see how it works with the scene. And at the same time, silences are important too. Also, one must make sure that the music in the film is changing. However, you must do it with such subtlety that it doesn’t overpower the film. The background score is incidental and yes, the film cannot do without it, but at the same time, it cannot be showcased so strongly that it will overtake it.”