MEGHAN KHARSYNRAP
Film Music
The Blood of Indian Cinema
Hindi cinema is considered synonymous to song and dance.
Even in the earliest days of Indian cinema, music has
been a key characteristic for film. Back then, films were
generally written for and around music unlike how music
is created and centred around films today. It’s the one
characteristic of Indian cinema that has been preserved for
decades, even as cinema drastically changed in production,
technique and form. In fact, song and dance is a character
of Indian culture that has lasted for thousands of years and
has merely re-emerged in a new form of art. Storytelling
through song and dance was crucial to traditional theatre
in ancient India. The practice has endured centuries and is
prominent in regional languages across India. Even UNESCO
labels this oral culture of storytelling a “Masterpiece
of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.”
What’s ironic is this very feature of Indian film is often
used by critics today to devalue a film, calling it naive
or crass. Critics like Satyajit Ray also made note of this
quality of film and considered music and dance that
was made for film striking, brash and vibrant.Today,
Bollywood music has come to be a genre of its own.
Although it is categorized as “popular music”, it sounds
nothing like it’s pop-music contemporaries. Today, It’s a
mix of ancient styles that have bred and developed for 2000
years, mixed with western and ‘now’ global qualities.
Music has been so prominent in Indian film that even
the first Indian talking-feature film Alam Ara-- made in
1931 by Ardeshir.M.Irani--has a dozen songs. Other films
from the era like Indrasabha has 59 songs and Shirin
Farhad has 42 songs. Movies of regional languages like
Tamil and Bengali also didn’t shy from the melodies and
choreography, matching the vigor of Hindi cinema in
terms of music and dance. Advertisements from that time
were accompanied by taglines stating “It (the feature)
was an all talking, all singing and all dancing feature.”
Even advertisements didn’t shy away from creating the
music-drama brand for Indian film. Film was made to be
enjoyable, understandable and pleasurable to watch.
Bollywood music has definitely changed. The catchy tunes,
use of instruments and arrangement is still pleasurable for
the masses. But today, soundtracks account for nearly 80% of
a movie’s revenue. What’s interesting is in many parts of the
world, licensing and placement of music in films, soundtracks,
ads and video games is still considered a fairly new side of
the business; unlike in India, where even the opening week
of a film is dependent on good pre-released music that
tempt audiences into watching the films. It’s hard for
International companies to penetrate into this bustling
and huge market that Bollywood has dominated for so
many decades. Localised companies or branches who
exclusively deal with Bollywood media capture a greater
market share, for example Zee Music and T-series.
The extent of Indian-film-music influence has ‘struck
a chord’ across the globe. There are plenty of fans of
Bollywood films around the world and therefore of
Bollywood music. Fourteen Songs, a popular British
musical was based off Hum Aapke Hain Koun. Moulin
Rouge was also influenced by Hindi cinema. Recently
there has been a lot of infusion of Hindi songs in
foreign movies, even in popular franchises like
Deadpool. Hindi film music has also been integrated
with local styles to form Chutney Music and others.
Music in India isn’t based on artists or independently.
Most people see songs in a film as a by-product of the
film, rather than an independent piece of art. This is
why artists and musicians in India find it hard to be
recognized. Unless an artists is making a consistent
number of hits at a quick pace, the artist is forgotten.
The
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