'Showtime' Series Soundtrack Composer Anand Bhaskar Channels Glitz and Grit

The Disney+ Hotstar show gets a bit of pop as well as rock influences from the Mumbai artist's Anand Bhaskar Collective, with singers like Romy, Nakash Aziz, Arjun Bala (from alt act Gumbal) and rapper Pratika

- ANURAG TAGAT

The latest series on the block, Showtime, is about showbiz and composer Anand Bhaskar was tasked with creating a filmi but modern soundtrack for the Disney+ Hotstar show. Part of the Anand Bhaskar Collective (ABC) and a composer, singer and lyricist for screen (most notably Mission Mangal, Baaghi 2 and Mirzapur, among others), Bhaskar says he dug into rock the way he would with ABC and more filmi pop influences for Showtime.

The series director Mihir Desai – who also worked with Bhaskar on Mirzapur – brought the composer in for what became their third project together, but it wasn’t business as usual. Bhaskar says, “Even when we’re not working together, we keep sharing music with each other. So when we started working on this, he said, ‘Let’s do something in the rock space.’” At first, Bhaskar wondered if that meant the Bollywood-esque “watered down” rock music that’s heard in soundtracks, or something “with actual distorted guitar tones and stuff.” It was the latter and that’s how Bhaskar gave songs like “Mahroo” (with singer Romy and lyricist Ginny Diwan) a marked alt-rock that’s rarely heard. He adds, “The moments in the show kind of required the music to kind of lean more towards pop and hip hop, while still retaining some kind of rock attitude.”