For many, Let’s Go For Glory, the self-composed track that Sonu Nigam sang at the opening ceremony of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 in Bangladesh was inglorious. The silver quilted jacket he wore with his I-Don’t-Know-Where-I-Belong-Hair didn’t help. The self-proclaimed “Golden Voice of Indipop” who has sung quite a few English songs lately, is a curious case of excessive reinvention. Certainly in his style.

The lead photograph on his official website, which still introduces him as Nigaam, with an extra numerological “a” (that he deleted recently), shows him in a black ganji and a pair of blue jeans. It is zipped up but the top button is left open to make him look like a stud. His hair is long and curly, and a week’s stubble spikes his face. His arms are held wide apart, in the classic SRK Kal Ho Na Ho stance, and his eyes are closed, blissfully lost in music — or so the website’s design would have us presume.

The 20-odd images loaded on the website represent the singer’s sometimes desperate need to keep restyling himself. Patchwork jackets, sequinned T-shirts, tacky shirts, bare shoulders, studded rings, leather bracelets, silver chains, bizarre pendants and a variety of hairstyles that have gone from a simple cut to long-and-curly; passing through, at various stages, a ponytail, spiked and gelled, straightened and ironed, and even the jooda he sported at a recent Bollywood awards function. “Irritating fashion”, as one blogger observed. Despite the many words of spiritual wisdom attributed to Nigam on his website, as well as in numerous interviews, and his soothing voice, he comes across as a rather restless soul.

Nigam made his first onscreen splash in 1995, as the host of Sa Re Ga Ma Pa, making it the most popular music show on TV. Besides a wondrously textured voice, he brought with him a simple charm. His looks matched his profile: that of a Mohammed Rafi clone who had been singing Rafi Ki Yaadein for T-series. Viewers warmed immensely to him, with his earnest, humble, good-boyish image, his short, tidy hair, and his sweet, good-natured smile.

Sixteen years later, there is a visible lack of compatibility between his image and singing prowess. Some days, he looks like Rafi Rockstar, who then becomes Jackson Nigam. He shape-shifts rapidly from Elvis Kumar to Madonna Burman to Sonu Timberlake, as audiences struggle to blur his image and hang on to his songs. His life has changed too, as some insist. Maybe he is trying to freeze the milestones of his personal and musical journey in the altering length of his hair and the embroidery of his jackets.

Yet he is a public face; a celebrity whose cult depends on his voice. Stardom falters with a changing, versatile image, say those who analyse fame— they believe that it forces audiences to keep re-imagining the identity of their hero. When the star is a singer, the listeners, who are also viewers, have to try even harder to reconcile the changing image of their favourite singer with his voice. That’s what is happening to Nigam when he removes his shirt like Salman Khan one day (on the cover of his album Classically Mild), and then becomes an overdressed Indian groom in brocade sherwanis when he performs in Dubai.

If Nigam urgently needs a stylist-strategist to manage his image (or fire the one he has), what about other musician-singers? Strange as it might sound as an argument, most others are consistent — even when badly dressed. If Lata and Asha Mangeshkar’s dignified saris, Mohammed Rafi’s formal suits, Kishore Kumar’s kurtas and RD Burman’s shirts helped etch their identities (and singing voices) in our minds, so did Bappi Lahiri’s insufferable gold rush and Usha Uthup’s bindi-kanjeevaram-bangles look. No one would recommend Kailash Kher for a fashion appearance, but he manages to look like himself most of the time, as does Anu Malik, whose style merits special mention, only because it is so consistently aesthetically-challenged. On Indian Idol last year, Sunidhi Chauhan tried hard to look like a rock diva with her blue nail polish, oversized rings and off-shoulder dresses, but she knew, as did we, that the prospect of Rihanna-esque charisma was many seasons away.

Nigam is different from this madding crowd. But unless he does something about his never-ending sequence of bad style makeovers, we may well remember the hair more than the voice.

https://archive.indianexpress.com/news/discordant-style/755255/