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Hindi film songs, more formally known as Hindi Geet or filmi and informally known as Bollywood music, are songs featured in Hindi cinema. Derived from the song-and-dance routines common in Indian films, Bollywood songs, along with dance, are a characteristic motif of Hindi cinema which gives it enduring popular appeal, cultural value and context. Hindi film songs form a predominant component of Indian pop music, and derive their inspiration from both classical and modern sources. Hindi film songs are now firmly embedded in North India's popular culture and routinely encountered in North India in marketplaces, shops, during bus and train journeys and numerous other situations. Though Hindi films routinely contain many songs and some dance routines, they are not musicals in the Western theatrical sense; the music-song-dance aspect is an integral feature of the genre akin to plot, dialogue and other parameters.
The first song recorded in India by Gauhar Jaan in 1902 and the first Bollywood film Alam Ara (1931) were under Saregama, India's oldest music label currently owned by RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group. Linguistically, Bollywood songs tend to use vernacular Hindustani, mutually intelligible to self-identified speakers of both Hindi and Urdu, while modern Bollywood songs also increasingly incorporate elements of Hinglish. Urdu poetry has had a particularly strong impact on Bollywood songs, where the lyrics draw heavily from Urdu poetry and the ghazal tradition. In addition, Punjabi language is also occasionally used for Bollywood songs.
The Indian Music Industry is largely dominated by Bollywood soundtracks, which account for nearly 80% of the country's music revenue. The industry was dominated by cassette tapes in the 1980s and 1990s, before transitioning to online streaming in the 2000s (bypassing CD and digital downloads). As of 2014, the largest Indian music record label is T-Series with up to 35% share of the Indian market, followed by Sony Music India (the largest foreign-owned label) with up to 25% share, and then Zee Music (which has a partnership with Sony). As of 2017, 216million Indians use music streaming services such as YouTube, Hungama, Gaana and JioSaavn. As of 2021, T-Series is the most subscribed YouTube channel with over 170 million subscribers.
Right from the advent of Indian cinema in 1931, musicals with song numbers have been a regular feature in Indian cinema. In 1934 Hindi film songs began to be recorded on gramophones and later, played on radio channels, giving rise to a new form of mass entertainment in India which was responsive to popular demand. Within the first few years itself, Hindi cinema had produced a variety of films which easily categorised into genres such as "historicals", "mythologicals", "devotional, "fantasy" etc. but each having songs embedded in them such that it is incorrect to classify them as "musicals".
The Hindi song was such an integral features of Hindi mainstream cinema, besides other characteristics, that post-independence alternative cinema, of which the films of Satyajit Ray are an example, discarded the song and dance motif in its effort to stand apart from mainstream cinema
The Hindi film song now began to make its presence felt as a predominating characteristic in the culture of the nation and began to assume roles beyond the limited purview of cinema. In multi-cultural India, as per film historian Partha Chatterjee, "the Hindi film song cut through all the language barriers in India, to engage in lively communication with the nation where more than twenty languages are spoken and ... scores of dialects exist". Bollywood music has drawn its inspiration from numerous traditional sources such as Ramleela, nautanki, tamasha and Parsi theatre, as well as from the West, Pakistan, and other Indic musical subcultures.
For over five decades, these songs formed the staple of popular music in South Asia and along with Hindi films, was an important cultural export to most countries around Asia and wherever the Indian diaspora had spread. The spread was galvanised by the advent of cheap plastic tape cassettes which were produced in the millions until the industry crashed in 2000. Even today Hindi film songs are available on radio, on television, as live music by performers, and on media, both old and new such as cassette tapes, compact disks and DVDs and are easily available, both legally and illegally, on the internet.
In a film, music, both in itself and accompanied with dance, has been used for many purposes including "heightening a situation, accentuating a mood, commenting on theme and action, providing relief and serving as interior monologue."
In a modern globalisation standpoint, Bollywood music has many non-Indian influences, especially from the West. Many Hindi film music composers learned and mimicked Hollywood's style of matching music to scene atmospheres into their own film songs, the result being Bollywood music. These songs can be considered a combination of Western influences and Hindi music.
The key figure in Bollywood music production and composition is the music director. While in Western films, a "music director" or "music coordinator" is usually responsible for selecting existing recorded music to add to the soundtrack, typically during opening and closing credits, in Bollywood films, the "music director" often has a much broader role encompassing both composing music/songs specifically for the film and (if needed) securing additional (licensed) music. In this sense, a Bollywood music director also plays the role of a composer and music producer.
The lyricist of Bollywood songs is less likely to be the same composer or music director, as Bollywood films often go to great lengths to include lyrics of special significance and applicability to the film's plot and dialogue, and/or the words of highly regarded poets/lyricists set to music written specifically for such words in the film, as noted above.
Bollywood film songs have been described as eclectic both in instrumentation and style.Morcom, Anna (2007) Hindi Film Songs and the Cinema. Aldershot: Ashgate. They often employ foreign instruments and rework existing songs, showing remarkable inventiveness in the reinvention of melodies and instrumental techniques. Carlo Nardi (July 2011). "The Cultural Economy of Sound: Reinventing Technology in Indian Popular Cinema". Journal on the Art of Record Production, Issue 5 .
Bollywood film songs often tend to be accompanied by expensive music videos. Some are among the most expensive music videos of all time. The most expensive Indian music video is "Party All Night" (for the 2013 film Boss), which cost () to produce. Adjusted for inflation, the most expensive Indian music video was "Pyar Kiya To Darna Kya" (for the 1960 film Mughal-e-Azam), which at the time cost more than (), equivalent to () adjusted for inflation.
In parallel to the Euro disco scene at the time, the continued relevance of disco in South Asia and the increasing reliance on synthesizers led to experiments in electronic disco, often combined with elements of Indian music. Biddu had already used electronic equipment such as synthesizers in some of his earlier disco work, including "Bionic Boogie" from Rain Forest (1976), "Soul Coaxing" (1977), Eastern Man and Futuristic Journey (recorded from 1976 to 1977), and "Phantasm" (1979), before using synthesizers for his later work with Nazia Hassan, including "Aap Jaisa Koi" (1980), Disco Deewane (1981) and "Boom Boom" (1982). Bollywood disco producers who used electronic equipment such as synthesizers include R.D. Burman, on songs such as "Dhanno Ki Aankhon Mein" ( Kitaab, 1977) and "Pyaar Karne Waale" ( Shaan, 1980); Laxmikant–Pyarelal, on songs such as "Om Shanti Om" ( Karz, 1980); and Bappi Lahari, on songs such as "Ramba Ho" ( Armaan, 1981). They also experimented with Minimalist music, Hi-NRG, electronic disco, including Burman's "Dil Lena Khel Hai Dildar Ka" ( Zamane Ko Dikhana Hai, 1981), which had a "futuristic Electro music feel", and Lahiri's "Yaad Aa Raha Hai" ( Disco Dancer, 1982).
Such experiments eventually culminated in the work of Charanjit Singh, whose 1982 record anticipated the sound of Acid house house music, years before the genre arose in the Chicago house scene of the late 1980s. Using the Roland TR-808 drum machine, TB-303 bass synthesizer, and Jupiter-8 synthesizer, Singh increased the disco tempo up to a "techno wavelength" and made the sounds more minimalistic, while pairing them with "mystical, repetitive, instrumental Indian ", to produce a new sound, which resembled acid house. According to Singh: "There was lots of disco music in films back in 1982. So I thought why not do something different using disco music only. I got an idea to play all the Indian ragas and give the beat a disco beat – and turn off the tabla. And I did it. And it turned out good." The first track "Raga Bhairavi" also had a synthesised voice that says "Om Namah Shivaya" through a vocoder.
Along with experiments in electronic disco, another experimental trend in Indian disco music of the early 1980s was the fusion of disco and psychedelic music. Due to 1960s psychedelic rock, popularised by the Beatles' raga rock, borrowing heavily from Indian music, it began exerting a reverse influence and had blended with Bollywood music by the early 1970s. This led to Bollywood producers exploring a middle-ground between disco and psychedelia in the early 1980s. Producers who experimented with disco-psychedelic fusion included Laxmikant–Pyarelal, on songs such as "Om Shanti Om" ( Karz, 1980), and R. D. Burman, on songs such as "Pyaar Karne Waale" ( Shaan, 1980), along with the use of synthesizers.
Music directors like Madan Mohan composed notable film- extensively for in the 1960s and the 1970s.
The filmi-ghazal style experienced a revival in the early 1990s, sparked by the success of Nadeem–Shravan's Aashiqui (1990). It had a big impact on Bollywood music at the time, ushering in ghazal-type romantic music that dominated the early 1990s, with soundtracks such as Dil, Saajan, Phool Aur Kaante and Deewana. A popular ghazal song from Aashiqui was "Dheere Dheere", a cover version of which was later recorded by Yo Yo Honey Singh and released by T-Series in 2015.
Within the subgenre of filmi qawwali, there exists a form of qawwali that is infused with modern and Western culture instruments, usually with techno beats, called techno-qawwali. An example of techno-qawwali is "Kajra Re", a filmi song composed by Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy. A newer variation of the techno-qawwali based on the more dance oriented tracks is known as the "club qawwali". More tracks of this nature are being recorded and released.
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and A. R. Rahman have composed filmi qawwalis in the style of traditional qawwali. Examples include "Tere Bin Nahin Jeena" ( Kachche Dhaage), "Arziyan" ( Delhi 6), "Khwaja Mere Khwaja" ( Jodhaa Akbar), "Bharde Do Jholi Meri" ( Bajrangi Bhaijaan) and "Kun Faya Kun" ( Rockstar).
A number of Bollywood soundtracks also plagiarised singer Mory Kanté, particularly his 1987 album Akwaba Beach. For example, his song "Tama" inspired two Bollywood songs, Bappi Lahiri's "Tamma Tamma" in Thanedaar (1990) and "Jumma Chumma" in Laxmikant-Pyarelal's soundtrack for Hum (1991), the latter also featuring another song "Ek Doosre Se" which copied his song "Inch Allah". His song "Yé ké yé ké" was also used as background music in the 1990 Bollywood film Agneepath, inspired the Bollywood song "Tamma Tamma" in Thanedaar, and was also copied by Mani Sharma's song "Pellikala Vachesindhe" in the 1997 Telugu film, Preminchukundam Raa.
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| 2017 | Tiger Zinda Hai | Vishal–Shekhar | Irshad Kamil | 1.6 | |
| 2018 | Satyameva Jayate | Nadeem–Shravan, Sajid–Wajid, Tanishk Bagchi, Arko, Rochak Kohli | Shabbir Ahmed, Ikka Singh, Kumaar, Arko, Danish Sabri | 1.5 | |
| Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety | Zack Knight, Yo Yo Honey Singh, Amaal Mallik, Guru Randhawa | Zack Knight, Kumaar, Yo Yo Honey Singh, Guru Randhawa | 1.5 | ||
| 2017 | Badrinath Ki Dulhania | Amaal Mallik, Tanishk Bagchi, Bappi Lahiri, Akhil Sachdeva | Shabbir Ahmed, Kumaar, Akhil Sachdeva, Badshah | 1.4 | |
| 2017 | Ek Haseena Thi Ek Deewana Tha | Nadeem Saifi | Nadeem Saifi, Faaiz Anwar | 1.3 | |
| 2018 | Simmba | Tanishk Bagchi, Viju Shah, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Kumaar | Shabbir Ahmed, Rashmi Virag, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan | 1.6 | |
| 2022 | Pritam | Amitabh Bhattacharya | 1.2 |
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