All about Bollywood Music
Let’s have a little journey into the crazy world of Indian cinema music and the different styles and influences that made it so interesting.
Indian cinema was born at the same time that Hollywood, the early silent movies had mostly religious themes . But then, in 1931 with Alam Ara, the first speaking picture of the history of Indian cinema, Bollywood really starts, with its first «star» Zubeida, a princess that discovers her passion for cinema with her mother, the begum Fatima, first woman director. The different songs of the movie became popular traditional tune that launched the musical industry in India. The main problem of Indian market is its cultural diversity, more than 20 official languages and hundreds of dialects, each one with its special tone and music traditions.
Indian cinema wasn’t born in one place, but in several. All other the country in every Indian states, Tollywood in Hyderabad for Telugu cinema, Kollywood in Chennaï for Tamul cinema, Bollywood in Mumbai for Hindi cinema or Sandalwood in Karnatka for Kannada cinema, there are many more, each with its own cinema and music industry. The treasure and greatness of Indian cinema is its diversity.
Like in the Europe and America of the 50’s, India felt for crooners, superstar singers that multiplied songs in different movie like Kishore Kumar or Mohamed Raffi, their voice became more famous than most actors and was indivisible from cinema.
Influenced by Indian traditional spritual music and the masters of Sitar like Ravi Shankar, the «psychedelic pop» of the late 60’s was born in India. The hippie wave that stroke India at this time was found of this new sounds and deeply changed the pop rock culture of the 70’s, specialy after the trip of the Beatles in an ashram of Rishikesh, where they composed their famous White Album. The most symbolic song of this period in India is Dum Maro Dum, from the movie Hare Rama Hare Krishna, sang by the most famous singer of this time Asha Bhosle.
After this «golden age», it was the Disco time, from the 80’s to the middle of the 90’s. The dance took its independence from tradition, to become what we call Bollywood dance, a mixed of modern dance and traditional gestures. This period strongly influenced the mainstream image of Bollywood all around the world, kitschy and very ebullient, for the best or the worst .
Nowadays, the Bollywood world is crazy about Electro, introduced by A.R. Autotunes and synthesizers are the new fashionable instruments. Hip hop also made its path in Bollywood, with the growing success of Punjabi rap, the crazy nights of Goa influenced a new Bollywood, losing a bit its famous candour. Indian cinema industry is the biggest in the world with 3,3 billion entries every year, the budgets are getting closer to the Hollywood ones, 3D and modern x effects changing the face of Bollywood, and, of course, musical industry is following the trend.
