Music is the main essence in all bollywood movies. The inclusion of song and dance sequences forms an integral part of every movie. Thus you get different types of songs which are either situational being part of the script or added as attractions. Nowadays apart from Hindi song or Indian song (here Indian song means a song that has a patriotic/Hindustani classical flavor) you have Pakistani song and Indian pop songs in bollywood movies. Ghazals and qawali too have their own hold in bollywood. In earlier years a bollywood movie was considered incomplete without a qawali. Similarly some of the movies towards the late 1980's included ghazals in their original soundtracks. With the popularity of remix song in recent years the demand for the earlier song formats has somewhat dwindled. Nevertheless you still get to hear ghazals and qawali in some of the new bollywood releases. However the same has been formatted keeping in mind the present taste of bollywood music buffs.
Pakistani song was not that famous in bollywood in the earlier years though there were some famous Pakistani singers who used to come to India to render songs for bollywood movies. These singers were popular because of their talent rather than their country. The Indo-Pak wars was still fresh in the minds of the people hence it was unpatriotic to patronize Pakistani song in India at that time. The advent of some famous Pakistani music directors and bands towards the early part of 1990 brought in a radical change in the bollywood music industry. Before this a brother-sister duo from Pakistan did become famous worldwide and was also hugely popular in India but they were basically based out of Pakistan. With the introduction of ?Sufi? music by Pakistani music directors and singers bollywood woke up to a new beginning in fusion music. This trend was successful in blending terms like Hindi song, Indian song, and Pakistani song into one common genre.
Though ghazals and qawali was mainly the trademark of Pakistani singers still it was well accepted by the bollywood music industry. The only difference is that now their demand has slightly dwindled due to the fact that new generation singers of this genre have not been able to live up to the expectations set so wonderfully by their talented predecessors. Still efforts are being made to create the same kind of magic again with a little help from technology. On the other hand ghazal and qawali fans still go for the masterpieces created in the earlier years though they sometimes experiment with the new stuff although a bit warily.
Indian pop songs made their entry into bollywood indirectly. A bevy of home-bred pop stars started crooning taking inspiration from their better off western counterparts. Surprisingly some of these made headlines and became a rage. A bandwagon followed and slowly singing sensations took birth overnight in every nook and corner of the country. One must admit here that some of the creations in the Indian pop songs category were indeed fabulous and have retained their appeal till date. The trend is still continuing except for the fact that competition has become more intense nowadays.
The remix song revolution in the country was started by a rooky Indian origin composer settled in a foreign country. He remixed one of the most popular and foot tapping songs of the 1970's and turned it into a sort of cult. It brought into existence a parallel music industry in bollywood specializing in remixes. The rest is history. Off late however remixes of popular numbers of yesteryears has seen a reduced fan following because of blatant remixes of classics leading to a lot of criticism among music lovers. Still this trend can be seen in its new avatar of remixing some of the popular songs of today.
The popularity of bollywood movie songs has reached a crescendo with the advent of music download facility through the internet. It has given a new dimension to music as a whole as latest music can be downloaded almost instantly into PC's, mobiles, i-pods etc.
Hollywood And Bollywood Movies
Bollywood Cinemas came in India on July 7 1896, when at the Watkins Hotel in downtown Bombay, the short films of the Lumiere brothers were shown. It became a huge hit among the audience. Then again in the year 1913, DG Phalke went on to London on a trip, where he got inspired by movie named 'The Life of Christ'. After returning back to India this successful painter made the nation's first feature film Raja Harishchandra, which was scantly based on Indian religious epic The Mahabharata. The film became a household name for years and since then Indian cinema has never looked back.
After a gap of 18 years, sound came to Indian cinema. It was the directorial debut of Ardeshir Irani and it was him whose vision got culminated into Alam Ara. The movie established song and dance as the narrative flow. The film industry was then split into different languages broadly into Hindi, Tamil and Telugu.
Today, come in common parlance with Mumbai-based Hindi film industry. The industry is quiet big as compared to others. It churns out approximately one thousand movies a year. Recently, the world has seen Bollywood movies' entry in the Oxford English Dictionary. Well, with the passage of time and with the technological endeavour the movies have also changed their forms. Today, we could find the growing number of English words in the latest Hindi movies.
With online shopping catching up the Indian market, we could see the vast difference in the marketing techniques. Now the consumers can buy their favourite Bollywood DVDs sitting in the comfort of their homes. Online shopping has redefined the whole process of shopping for the Indian consumers. People now do shopping, banking and even trading though the Internet. This not only saves our precious time but also helps us to cut down the travelling fuel cost. You don't have to stand endlessly for your favourite Bollywood DVDs anymore; the shop is just beneath your fingertips. You can read previews, reviews and watch trailers of the movies online. There are a number of websites that can offer rented DVDs as well to the customers.
Both Humsohail & Raisa Raima are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
