As the journey of (Micro Review of) Best Song of The Year moves forward in its backward count of the years, the challenge of making any sensible statement about My Top Music Director for the year has now become almost insurmountable. I have no idea about how the music of the films was received by the common public or the critics in those years. Nor do I have good enough knowledge of the different elements of film music that I can bank upon to arrive at some basis of the overall quality of music by simply listening the songs for the year, a couple of times during the course of the present Micro Review.
The year 1944 having a couple of films by the music directors who also thrived into the next stage of Golden Era makes even the process of arriving at any judgement more unrealistic, since the present view of picture being seen under the Micro View becomes coloured with the acquaintance of those music directors during my formative years of the cultivation of the taste for the Hindi Film Music. The process is further complicated by the fact that the year 1944 has several songs that have also remained popular enough during my those formative years.
As such, by deploying the various empirical tools that I have been using during the previous Micro Reviews can only help bring into the view the music directors who remained more visible during the Micro View of Best Songs for the year 1944. To that extent, the title of the ‘My Top Music Director’ is also a gross misstatement. I have still retained it only to maintain the consistency of the format of the Micro View exercise.
With these disclaimers, here is the The Music director-wise Quantitative view My Top Solo songs of Male Playback Singers, Solo songs of Female Playback Singers and the Duets, respectively, in no particular order –
| Music Director | Male Solos | Female solos | Duets |
| Subal Dasgupta | 1 | ||
| Khemchand Prakash | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Bulo C Rani | 3 | ||
| Husnlal Bhagatram | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Pt. Amarnath | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| Anil Biswas | 1 | 3 | 1 |
| Mir Sahab | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| Naushad Ali | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| C Ramchandra | 1 | 1 | |
| G A Chisti | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Pankaj Mullik | 1 | 1 | |
| Pannalal Ghosh | 1 | ||
| Pt. Govardhan Prasad | 1 | ||
| Firoz Nizami | 2 | 1 | |
| Hanuman Prasad | 1 | ||
| Ghulam Haider | 2 | 1 | |
| Gulshan Sufi | 2 | 1 | |
| Sajjad Hussain | 1 | ||
| Veer Sinh | 1 | ||
| Alla Rakha | 1 | ||
| Gyan Dutt | 1 |
Songs of Yore, in its comprehensive review of music directors, does a similar exercise for the ‘Best Songs’ in each of the above category and notes that Khmechand Prakash, Naushad Ali , Pankaj Mulik and Mir Saheb get the high share of visibility in the form of songs. .
If we had carried out a similar exercise for the songs, we had listened to in each category during the respective Micro View stage, we may get some more names, with a different score.
However, each of such analyses only present a partial pitcture because the impact that music directors like Bulo C Rani (Carvan) or Husnlal Bhagatram (Chaand), Anil Biswas (Jwar Bhata, Char Aankhein) and the likes would have been able to create is lost with passage of time and is not captured in these skeletal numbers.
In my opinion, this forum has been created not to judge the Best in its apparent dictionary meaning, but to relive the songs of these years in the present times, and thereby get the opportunity not only to refresh our memories but also to widen our perspective of looking at / listening to the film music. With the help of great dedicated and creative efforts of all those who have found out the songs and uploaded them on YT, we have been beneficiaries of getting to listen to these songs.
SoY has also presented an exhaustive analysis to arrive at ‘fairtest outome’ for adjudging the Best Music Director spot for the year 1944 in its Best songs of 1944: Final Wrap Up 4, jointly, in favor of Naushad, Khemchand Prakash and Pankaj Mullik.
P.S.
All the episodes of Micro View of Best Songs for 1944 @SoY can be read / downloaded from one file, by clicking on the hyper link.
The world is too small? or Is it? 