Bollywood
Like I wrote a few days ago, I am currently in the process of deleting a lot of unlistened (often unlistenable) music from my collection. A part of it consists in Bollywood songs, most of which are in a lossless format, ripped directly from the “original” records, and that takes a lot of space for something that I almost never listen to anymore.
I bought a lot of Indian music CD’s when I moved to Pakistan : I had my iPod but the very low bandwidth there meant I had to actually buy (!) physical CD’s to get new music. The first time I got into a Pakistani record store, I quickly got the idea that I would not find genuine merchandise : CD’s there were very cheap, around 1€ each, and completely pirated. Sometimes you could see store attendants putting the CD in the crystal box and folding the cover before putting it on display. There were basically 3 kinds of music available : Western one (think MTV Top 50), Pakistani ones (can’t remember much great thing about it) and Indian ones, with Bollywood movie soundtrack compilations making a big chunk of it. Displayed prominently on most records in the latter category was usually some scantily-clad Indian vixen.
I hated the music at first : Litterally unaudible. But it grew on me after repeated listening.
Ishq Kabhi Kariyo Na (from the movie “Musafir”) and the video on YouTube:
The collection eventually grew to around 150CD’s, which I had to dump before coming back to Europe (not wanting to be busted for pirating the likes of “Bollywood Top Love Songs Vol. 47”). But still, I haven’t listened to them much since my time in Lahore. Afterwards I grew an interest in older Bollywod songs, a lot of which are available on emusic, from the Saregama label, as well as on YouTube for the videos.
For example, Kalyanji Anandji, a duo of composers, made somewhat popular in the West through the compilation “Bombay The Hard Way (Guns, Cars & Sitars)” by Dan “The Automator” Nakamura (of Gorillaz fame). Here are 2 of their songs :
Yeh Mera Dil, (from the movie “Don”, sung by Asha Bhosle) and the video on YouTube:
Bombay Sheher (from the movie “Hadsaa”)
Or Lata Mangeshkar, a very very productive playback singer (and she’s been at it for ever as well). The song below got popular in the west through its sampling by Dr. Dre in the hit song “Addictive” by Truth Hurts :
Thoda Resham Lagta Hai (from the movie “Jyoti”)
Finally a song I like, sung by Asha Bhosle (Lata’s sister actually) :
De De Pyaar De (from the movie “Sharaabi”) and the video on YouTube: