Sync Spotlight aims to showcase examples of music licensing in India and across the globe – be it in web series, ads or films.
The Family Man – S02E02 – Weapon
This show is available for viewing on Amazon Prime.
Song: Beta Sweater Pehno by Swarathma
The Family Man is one of the first Indian shows to license songs by independent artists.
This particular bit (around 22 minutes into episode 2) is also the first time a song is used as a score within the context of an episode – and not as a closing credits track.
Shrikant Tiwari quits his life-threatening and highly displacing job, and now has time and certainty on his hands – he can go home to his family everyday. Yet, his wife remains unhappy for reasons he doesn’t know or even wishes to truly understand. Not only does he feel helplessly inadequate in his marriage, but he is also stuck in a day job he hates.
Swarathma released Beta Sweater Pehno in 2017 as a single with a very cool and satirical music video. The song talks about the dreary experience of prosaic paths being set for us in our lives – either by parents, society or even our own institutionalized conscience.
The dawdling bassline, Vasu Dixit’s colloquial vocal performance, and the dejected tone of the strings perfectly summarize the lead character’s jaded life. The song lasts for lesser than a minute before abruptly stopping with the reveal of the much-annoying millennial-boy boss, who has found yet another reason to be disappointed with Shrikant.
The production on the background score by Ketan Sodha is excellent and minimal, with skillfully crafted sections of tension and release. The music does extremely well alongside the tight screenplay, and specifically in the elaborately choreographed action sequences. I was very pleased with the absence of larger-than-life drums and the perpetually sought after Hans Zimmer brass sounds. Good, immersive action scenes do not need a heavy and dramatic score to drive tension.
The show may be riddled with inaccurate representations, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t thoroughly entertained by everything else.
To know more great examples of music licensing in India and the world, read other editions of Sync Spotlight here.