From lip syncing melodies and running around trees to rapping in clubs, bollywood music has come a long way. Bollywood movies are known for their music since decades which has gone through lots of transformation in terms of picturisation, lyrics and style of singing.
Gone are the days when songs were witten keeping in mind the situation of the movie. Nowadays, songs in Bollywood are made to entertain the audience and to gain more and more likes and views on streaming platforms.
Actor-Singer Duo
Earlier, there was a trend of keeping the same voices for actors in every movie and that's the reason actor-singer duo like Kishore Kumar & Rajesh Khanna, Mohd Rafi and Dilip Kumar, KK and Emraan Hashmi, Udit Narayan & Shah Rukh Khan etc became famous. Nowadays, we rarely get to see such combinations.
Solo Composers
Even the albums are composed by multiple music composers now. That was not the case until 2010. Some great composers like RD Burman, Naushad, Khayyam, Jatin-Lalit, etc. never shared music albums with other composers. This used to give a particular feel to the music album because of the signature style in composition of the songs. In recent times, we see music albums are done by various composers with one or two songs each.
Classic Bollywood
In 40s and 50s, when we moved from silent films to talking films, songs were often sung by the actors themselves. In the 50s, singers like KL Saigal, Hemant Kumar and TalatMehmood made their mark in Bollywood. That era also saw the emergence of jazz music in India and jazz queen GeetaDutt became a household name. The era of 60s saw the rise of amalgamation of shayari and easy going melodies. Many popular lyricists of that time like SahirLudhianvi, Sultan Majroohpuri, etc. were shayars and used to write songs in Hindi-Urdu.That era was dominated by Mohd. Rafi, Kishore Kumarand LataMangeshkar who later became legends in the field.
Change in new century
A major change in bollywood music came in 90s with the inception of indie-pop music in the country. This was the era of television and singers like Falguni Pathak, KK, Alisha Chinoy, Shaan, etc. bepcame household names with their popular music albums. If you're a 90s kid, you must be having an old cassette of hindi pop music of that era. In 21st century, with new technologies and fresh crop of composers, sound of music changed again for good.Post 2010,Bollywood music has most polarized audience. It is liked by few and disliked by many because of reasons like remaking of old classics, meaningless lyrics, overuse of rap and too many party songs.
