All about Bollywood music industry

 

Bollywood Music or Hindi music

Bollywood songs also known as Hindi Geet or Filmi songs which mainly used to descried music from Bollywood musical films (specially made in Mumbai film industry). It is also most popular form of Indian music industry. Bollywood film’s songs are rarely singing by the actors. Mostly it done by the playback singers who sings those songs and the actors lip-synch with it in front of the screen. A thousands of Bollywood filmy songs have been produced and sung by a small number of playback singers.

Bollywood songs are featured with dance fantasies and several characteristic motives of Hindi cinema which has a specific cultural values and context. Those songs are one of the main part of Indian pop music and commonly inspired from Indian classical music’s and modern music genres.

Basically, Bollywood music’s is not a pure genre of music. It adopted from different genres and makes a cocktail of its own version. The soundtracks are also made on folk or western music, ghazals and qawwalis. As well as Urdu poetry has had a strong impact on Bollywood song’s lyrics and heavily inspired from the Ghazal traditions. In recent era, Punjabi genres is also make a good impact on Bollywood songs.

However, the majority of the filmy songs can’t have classified in any particular form or a popular genre. It is a special character of their own. Those songs are created for specific movies and supposed to be part of any character’s emotion.

Many popular songs from the movies in 1940s, 1050s and 1960s, are still very popular among the music lovers. All most everyone will have loved the Bollywood songs from the Hindi movies, specially the music from later 80s to earlier part of that century. A lot of great and legendary artistes has contributions to Bollywood music for whom popularity of filmy music spread across the world and yet none of other genres comes close to the popularity of Bollywood music’s. 

Thought most of the Bollywood songs sung in Hindi languages which are not most of the Indian’s generic language. But, it also popular among all over the Indians, Pakistani, Bangladeshis as well as the people in Southeast Asia, Middle East and other parts of the world.

The main reason behind the Bollywood songs popularity is its rare fusion of major forms of arts. Music, poetry, screenplay and fiction are the main four forms of theBollywood music which joined a special musical genre. This fusion is the one of the best part of different arts in India. Those filmy songs are a significant part of over all other forms of music.

An average Hindi film’s will feature from four to six songs adjust with the narrative of the film and recorded specifically for several situations. However, Indian film’s music is very different from conventional film music’s. a movie director and screen writer will define the songs place of situation in the script. Then a music director and a lyricist will write and compose in the music which fits the setting situations or storyline. After that a professional playback singer sing the song and recording into a studio. And the actor is actress to lip-sings to in the movie.

That’s the way the film music’s are produced since the 1902s while the first song was recorded in India by Gauhar Jaan (1902). It was used in the first Bollywood film Alam Ara (1931) which was produced in under Saregama’s banner.  

    

To understand the Hindi film music, we need to consider the before 1970s to 1990s music, which was mainly written as a part of the movie. It has been an old pattern of consuming music through films and one of the main factors the tastes of the Indian consumer’s.

however, Indian audiences traditionally has a great music connection with video content and movie’s narratives. For which its plays a huge role in the Indian music industry. 

Bollywood films music industry

At the end of the 2020, Indian music industry’s valued was around 15 billion rupees and estimated that the sector was growing 15% compound annual rate for which the sector will reach 23 billion rupees’ valuations in 2023.

As we all know that Bollywood is a big part of Indian film industry and there has also another 22 languages film industry. As like that Bollywood film music is just a big part of Indian music industry. It also true that Indian music industry are largely dominated by the Bollywood music albums. All most 80% of the country’s revenue comes from the filmy music. 

A survey report from IFPI show that, the recording industry generated $153.1 million in 2018, up 17,1% from 2017. And in 2018, streaming revenue went up 22,3%, with streaming accounting for 69% of all recording revenues.

According to Statista, “in 2020 the revenue generated from the music rights of the films was around four billion rupees and it will be go up to over five billion rupees by the end of the 2024 fiscal year. Even though almost 80% of its revenue comes from Bollywood music, followed by Indo-pop genre.”

However, according to KPMG in India analysis. “Bollywood music accounted for 50% of all consumption in the country. Another 30% went to regional music, with the remaining 20% attributed to the international repertoire. Comparing the Bollywood’s 50% with 80% from a couple of years ago, it’s easy to conclude that the soundtracks are giving way to independent, artist-centric music model.”

For addition, though Bollywood music has no particular genre. It first the alternative way of music production and centered around the film industry which can be applied to all kinds of music. In the way, the top-4 film music companies in India Saregama, T-Series, Sony Music India, and Zee Music Company are playing the same role in the music industry.

Since 1980s to 1990s (which also considered as a golden era of Hindi filmy music) Bollywood music industry had been dominated by selling cassette tapes. Then, on 2000s its forms were transforming to online streaming or CD and digital downloads.

In recent years, India’s rapid digitalization creates a huge craze of online streaming music’s in the young generations. As well as, in 2016 Reliance Jio a 4G telecom service entered the market and announced their mission statement to “provide broadband for every Indian”. After then, with in just two years Jio company cheap data plan and Indian government’s great support India become the cheapest mobile internet user country in the world.

According to Cable, ‘1 GB of mobile data in India now costs just $0,26. For this reason, in 2015 to 2018, Indian internet users grew more than 60% to 566 million across. For all those reasons, India now experience a lot of online streaming audiences for which people from most remote parts of the country can streaming online music.

According to Nielsen, 94% of the online consumers in India listen to music and 71% of them say that music is very important part of their lives.

In 2017, a report was published that showed, 216 million Indian users were streaming YouTube, Hungama, Gaana and Saavn such as music streaming services. Though, YouTube provides completely free, visual, and easily accessible services for that it reaches to over 80% of the online users in India and around 245 million Indians are streaming the service every month.

On the other hand, in 2021, T-Series which is the Indian record label/film production company declared the most subscribed YouTube channel with over 170 million subscribers.

According to the music company statements, Gaana and Saavn which also known as JioSaavn after merged in the 2018 to April, 2019 it has reached 100 million users and expecting that the streaming user-base to hit 500 million in the next couple of years.

I think, it will become true so soon because of Covid-19 panmagic situations, people spends lots of time at home and at that time Indian music consumers became highly dependent on online music streaming platforms.  

However, with all of those positive sides, people thought that Bollywood film’s music faded its golden shine because of generating fewer new hit songs. Many mainstream Bollywood music channel generate more and more non-film music into their mix of offerings and Bollywood just can’t delivered as many hits as it did before.

The managing director and CEO of Universal Music India Devraj Sanyal says that, “The real answer to Bollywood losing its shine is that not enough great songs are coming out; regional gaining real dominance; non-film making a decided dent and international is continuing to grow.”

Bollywood music hit’s ratio has dropped because films narration formats have changed over the last decades and filmmakers using songs in the background instead of used with a dance or fiction sequences. As a result, few songs were composed fully or added with film’s music album.

In this year, on the All About Music Conference in Mumbai both Vinit Thakkar, senior vice president at Universal Music India and Prashan Agarwal, the CEO of Gaana, estimated that “Hindi film soundtracks generate an average of 100 hits a year, which is simply not enough in the consumption-heavy streaming era.”

With this problem many film makers experienced creative crisis and decided to not produce a new song. They mostly relying on ‘recreations’ to boost up their success chances of landing hits.

On the other hand, as like any other industry, online streaming platforms has struggled with a serious issue that is music piracy rates. In recent days, piracy is a big threat. Around 98% digital music consumption was unlicensed.

Even until 2012, the Music Copyright Act of India assigned copyrights to film producers instead of the real songwriters. Despite the new laws, most of the artists don’t earn any royalties. Although, royalties of songwriters and composers made up less than just 1% of the total industry’s revenue, which value was around $4 million only.  

For stop the piracy problem, government should give legal supports as well as makes country’s online security services too strong that all illegal streaming services will forced to closed their platforms. 

According to a current survey, “estimated losses of the recording business linked to piracy range from $130 to $260 million. The impact of piracy is notoriously hard to measure, but even by the most modest estimations, 80% of all recording revenues are lost to the pirates. Unlicensed consumption is undoubtedly one of the main roadblocks on the path to the streaming ecosystem in India.”

At last, we are hopeful about Bollywood music industry’s growth on the streaming user-base in the coming years.

Top ten Best-selling soundtracks albums according to Box office in India

Here, a list of top ten Best-selling Bollywood filmy soundtracks albums since 1985 sourced by Box office in India.

1.Aashiqui (1990)

Aashiqui is the 1990 hindi musical romantic film directed by Mahesh Bhatt and produced by Gulshan Kumar. The film was starred with Rahul Roy, Anu Aggarwal and Deepak Tijorin.

The film was mostly known by its super hit songs. After theatrical release the film became hit and received positive reviews from audiences.

But, the music was received more than the entire film. The songs were super-duper hit at that time and since than to till now its popularity wouldn’t fade.

This film music was composed by Bollywood duo Nadeem-Shravan who are also known as Nadeem Akhtar Sarif and Shravan Kumar Rathod. With the soundtrack album they started their musical career along with singer Kumar Sanu who sung all those great filmi-ghazels with T-Series music banner. The lyrics were written by Sameer, Rani Mallik and Madan Pal.   

The soundtrack album has been rated the fourth best by Planet Bollywood on their‘100 Greatest Bollywood Soundtracks”. As well as, with 20 million units, the soundtrack received the title of the Bollywood Best-selling Soundtrack album of all time and became a history of Indian Music Industry.

As well as it creates a huge impact on Bollywood romantic ghazel genres songs which were mainly dominates large part of early 1990s. Aashiqui was also won all musical awards including Best Lyricist of Sameer (for "Nazar Ke Saamne"), Best Male Playback Singer Kumar Sanu (for "Ab Tere Bin") and Best Female Playback Singer Anuradha Paudwal (for "Nazar Ke Saamne").

 The film’s cover version ‘Dheere Dheere’ was released by Punjabi Pop singer YO Yo Honey Singh in 2015. In April 2018, the song has received over 400 million views on YouTube.

In 2013, director Mohit Suri was released to a sequel film of Aashiqui 2. This film soundtracks album was also super hit at that time.      

2. Dil Toh Pagal Hai (1997)

Romantic musical hindi film Dil Toh Pagal Hai released on 1997 which was directed by Yash Chopra. The film was starred with Shah Rukh Khan opposite Madhuri Dixit in the lead roles and Akshay Kumar and Karisma Kapoor in the special important roles.

The music was composed by Uttam Singh and lyrics were written by Anand Bakshi. With 10 great songs the music album became major hit among the music lovers. The film songs were sung by Bollywood playback singers Lata Mangeshkar, Udit Narayan, Asha Bhosle, Kumar Sanu and Hariharan.

The film was got several award nominations’ for the music’s and won three of them including Filmfare Awards 1998.

The music album was rated Best-selling Bollywood soundtrack of the year with 12.5 million unit sales and selling from the music right YRF Music earned an advance of 45 million rupees.      

3. Raja Hindustani (1996)

As we all know, 1990s was a golden period for Bollywood music, Raja Hindustani was the third best-selling soundtrack of 90s after Aashiqui and Dil To Pagal Hai. Even till now, Raja Hindustani soundtracks have been as popular with in filmy audiences.

The film soundtracks were composed by Bollywood popular duo Nadeem-Shravan and with lyrics were written by Sameer. This film’s songs were sung by the great singer of Bollywood music industry like Kumar Sanu, Alka Yagnik and Udit Narayan along with other’s singers.

According to Planet Bollywood ranks the film’s soundtrack at 56 in its all-time top 100 greatest Bollywood soundtracks. 

Aniket Joshi of Planet Bollywood gave the album a rating of 9.5 out of 10 stating, "Raja Hindustani is a must for lovers of good everlasting melody.”

One of the song of the film ‘Kitna Pyara Tujhe Rab Ne Banaya’ was a translated Punjabi song ‘Kinna Sona Tenu Rab Ne Banaya’ sung by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

Another two songs ‘Aaye Ho Meri Zindagi Mein’ and ‘Pardesi Pardesi’ which sung by Udit Narayan and Alka Yagnik, had gotten a huge popularity at that time and became one of the main reason of the film’s success. For this soundtrack, singer Udit Narayan won the Filmfare Best Playback singer award.

The song ‘Saala Main To Sahab Ban Gaya’, was used by the 1974 film Sagina. In the film, this song was sung by singer Kishore Kumar and the original vocal were absolutely retained in the Raja Hindustani soundtracks album.

Singer Alka Yagnik’s sung the songs ‘Poochho Zara Poocho’ and ‘Tumse Dil Lagane Ki Sazaa Hai’ which were considered as one of the best songs for her musical career. For the huge popularity of those songs, later those song has been copied by many composers.

As well as, the album became one of the best-selling Bollywood soundtracks of the year with earned by wide margin. And also the soundtrack album sold 11 million copies and became one of the best-selling Bollywood soundtrack album of all time.  

4. Hum Aapke Hain Kaun (1994)

Hum Aapke Hain Kaun is a 1994 Hindi romantic film written and directed by Sooraj Barjatya and produced by Rajshri Productions. The film was started with Madhuri Dixit and Salman Khan. This film was adopted from 1982 film Nadiya Ke Paar.

This super-duper hit film was a highest grossing Bollywood film in 1990s. As well as this film’s soundtracks album is also one of the most popular album in Bollywood music industry with some singers, including S.P. Balasubramanyam & Lata Mangeshkar, Kumar Sanu, Udit Narayan, Shailendra Singh and Sharda Sinha. In Indian wedding culture the soundtracks album made a strong impact, Including the game songs which popularly known as ‘Antakshari’.

The music was composed by Raamlaxman whose original name is Vijay Patil and lyrics were written by Ravinder Rawal and Dev Kohli. The soundtrack was included with a large of songs almost 14.

In this film, one of the most popular track ‘Didi Tera Devar Deewana’ was mainly inspired by Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s song ‘Saare Nbian’. Later, this song became one of the most popular film songs ever. The soundtracks were overnight success and became best-selling Bollywood soundtracks of the year. As well as the album got the title one of the top four sellers of the 1990s, selling with 12 million units. According to Planet Bollywood, the soundtracks album was ranked 29th all-time best Bollywood soundtracks.    

5. Chandni (1989) 

Chandni is a romantic musical film in Bollywood directed by and co-produced by Yash Chopra. Sridevi was in the lead role the movie. Rishi Kapoor, Vinod Khanna, Waheeda Rehman, Anupam Kher, Sushma Seth, Mita Vashisht, Manohar Singh were featured in supporting roles.

In the soundtracks album melodic music used in several songs and picturized in foreign locations with the special Yash Chopra’s style film’s songs became most popular at that time.

The music of ‘Chandni’ was composed by Shiv Kumar Sharma and Hariprasad Chaurasia which mostly known as Shiv-Hari and the lyrics were written by Anand Bakshi.

Including the film’s wide commercial success in India, the soundtracks album was also becoming the most best-selling album of the year in 1980s with over 10 million copies selling. Film’s immense success and its music instrumental were the ending era of violent action in Indian cinema as well as romantic musical genre.

According to Yash Raj Films, the soundtracks went 4x platinum on the première day and went to 25x by the 25th weeks and created a new standard in the Bollywood music industry.

6. Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (1995)

DilwaleDulhaniya Le Jayenge is the one of the most successful Bollywood films in the Indian film history. This musical romantic film was directed by Aditya Chopra and produced by his father Yash Chopra and the story was written by Javed Siddiqui with Aditya Chopra.

Starring with Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol in lead roles the film was super-duper hit film at 90s. Even, in 2021 over 25 years of after released this film was still as popular. As like the films the soundtracks album also a super hit at that time.

According to HMV, the soundtrack became the best-selling Bollywood soundtrack of 1995, with 12 million official units sold.”

The soundtracks included with seven songs which composed by musical duo Jatin Lalit and Anand Bakshi wrote the lyrics. For his great contribution Anand won several music awards, including his third Filmfare Best Lyricist award after 14 years.

As well as, Bhasker Gupta, writing for AllMusic said, “the soundtrack was the best of Jatin Lalit's career, and that it marked the beginning of the fifth wave in Indian cinema ...".

The soundtracks songs were sung by some legendary Indian singers as Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, Kumar Sanu, Abhijeet Bhattacharya and Udit Narayan.

The song "Mehndi Laga Ke Rakhna" sung by Lata Mangeshkar, Udit Narayan was one of the all-time hit Bollywood wedding song which is often played at wedding ceremonies across the South Asian region.

Gulshan kumar, owner of T-Series sold an unofficial version of the sound track album under T-Series banner and overall earned 20 million copies. Even before film released, Chopra sold more than 1 million units and advanced earning 10million rupees. But, if we merged its pirated copies value than its range from 25 to 100 million rupees.     

Even, in 2005 survey by BBC Asian Network website showed that, the album was judged the top Hindi soundtrack of all time.

7. Kaho Na... Pyaar Hai (2000)

In 2000s romantic musical hindi film Kaho Na… Pyaar Hai was directed by Rakesh Roshan. Starred with his son Hrithik Roshan and Ameesha Patel in lead roles.

This blockbuster film’s soundtrack has also been very popular among filmy music lovers since then. The music was composed by Rajesh Roshan and lyrics were writing by Ibrahim Askh, Saawan Kumar Tak and Vijay Akela with Saregama banner. In this soundtracks album most of the songs were sung by Lucky Ali, Udit Narayan and Alka Yagnik. 

After released the music was sold over 10 million units and became the best-selling Bollywood soundtrack of the year. The music album won several prestigious Indian music awards including Filmfare Awards and International Indian Film Academy Awards. 

8. Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998)

Kuch KuchHota Hai is a Bollywood blockbuster film whose popularity may be never faded for its hit soundtracks. The title song ‘Kuch Kuch hota Hai’ remained on the all time favorite songs among people. Even  now, the soundtracks of this album is extremely popular.

In 2012, NDTV declared that, “it was voted as the most popular film song of the earlier decade. The full soundtrack came in second place in a similar poll conducted by the BBC, the first place being taken by Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, an album which was also composed by Jatin-Lalit.”

The musiccomposed by Jatin-Lalit and lyrics were written by Sameer. Initially Javed Akhter had been signed to write the lyrics.  Most of the songs were sung by Udit Narayan, Alka Yagnik, Kavita Krishnamurthy, Kumar Sanu and Shankar Mahadevan.

The music album was released on Sony Music banner on 12th August 1998. After released, the album became one of the best-selling Bollywood soundtracks of the year taking second position on the Malaysian albums chart (RIM) in 1999.

Basically, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai is a 1998 romantic comedy film in Bollywood which was directed and written by Karon Johar and produced it under Dharma Production’s big banner. The film was starred with bollywood popular pair Shah Rukh Khan opposite Kajol. And Rani Mukerji, Salman Khan and child artist Sana Saeed played the supporting roles in the film.

9. Saajan (1991)

Saajan is a romantic film in Bollywood which directed by Lawrence D'Souza and produced by Sudhakar Bokade. The film starred Salman Khan, Sanjay Dutt and Madhuri Dixit in the lead roles. After release, it became the highest grossing Bollywood film of the year. The tracks of the movie were also super-duper hit at that time. Still now, music lovers have memorized those hit songs with Madhuri’s performance.

Nadeem-Shravan composed the soundtracks album and lyrics were written by Sammer and Faiz Anwar. Most of the songs of were sung by Kumar Sanu, Alka Yagnik, SP Balasubramanyam and Pankaj Udhas, Anuradha Paudwal.

All the singers of the soundtracks were nominated for Filmfare Awards and won Filmfare Award for Best Male Playback Singer for Kumar Sanu and Director awards for Nadeem-Shravan for the song “Mera Dil Bhi Kitna Pagal Hai”. After released, the album became one of the top seller music album according Box office India with around 7 million units sold.   

10. Phool Aur Kaante (1991)

Phool AurKaante is an action film in Bollywood directed by Kuku Kohli and produced by Dinesh Patel. The film was starred with Ajay Devgan in the lead roles.

After released, the film was super hit and received huge appreciation from audiences. Mostly people was noted the film for its soundtracks. The album was superhit at that time. 

The album was composed by the music compose duo Nadeem Shravan while lyrics were written by Sammer and Rani Malik. One of the hit songs of the album “Tumse Milne ko DilKarta Hai” was inspired by Pakistani Film Song Mujhe Dekh Ke Been Bajain’. The soundtracks mostly sung by the singers Kumar Sanu, Anuradha Paudwal, Udit Narayan, Alka Yagnik and Alisha Chinai.