The Indipop album has become a thing of the past, replaced by the single that can be anything from a cover to a remix to a live performance played out for social media salutations. In the absence of a viable pop music scene in the country and the dominance of Hindi film music, how are artists channelling their creative juices?
T-Series, one of India's biggest music companies, has come up with the winning idea of marrying pop to Bollywood groove. What else can explain the sudden deluge of video songs that has hit the music scene? The hook is unavoidable: you either watch the video because it has your favourite movie star, or you listen to the audio because the singer is trying to re-define pop within its new trappings.
The pop music genre cannot survive without Bollywood, as is apparent in the latest video of actress Sonakshi Sinha making her singing debut in Aaj Mood Ishqholic Hai.
Super Girl From China, featuring the voices of Kanika Singh and Mika Singh is a Baby Doll reboot with Sunny Leone playing the part of a figurine imported from China. It’s a tried-and-tested package that never fails.
Neka Kakkar sings for Shilpa Shetty in a bid to revive Shetty’s dance moves in the cleverly designed Wedding Da Season which includes careful product placement. Sonu Nigam’s vocal chords and acting talents are stretched to the limit in his pop outing, Aa Bhi Jaa Tu. Tiger Shroff’s acrobatic footwork features in Zindagi Aa Raha crooned by Pakistani singer Atif Aslam. If these songs do well on YouTube, they might just be re-used for subsequent movies, since they carry the Bollywood sound in any case.
T-Series has also been digging into its past in order to re-invent Hindi film standards as well as keep the music video tradition alive. Earlier in September, Bhushan Kumar’s company released a single, Dheere Dheere, which was originally a part of the blockbuster soundtrack of the movie Aashiqui (1990). The new track was recreated by singer and composer Yo Yo Honey Singh, and featured actors Hrithik Roshan and Sonam Kapoor. The video was viewed a few millions times on YouTube, and the three main stars associated with it spent a lot of time contemplating their next move on Twitter.
The music company retooled another song, Mainu Ishq Da Lagya Rog, from Dil Hai Ki Maanta Nahin (1991), sung this time by in-house talent Tulsi Kumar (Bhushan Kumar’s sister), to launch the music video aspirations of another sibling, Khushali Kumar.
On both occasions, popular songs from older Hindi films were retrofitted to appeal to a new generation of music lovers. The immense popularity of the original Dheere Dheere song has certainly set the ball rolling for many more such efforts. Reports suggest that the next one will feature star attraction Katrina Kaif.
In the year that T-Series hijacked the pop music scene with its Bollywood spins, were there any non-film tracks worth listening to?
T-Series made sure that they covered that ground too. Ayushmann Khurrana, who occasionally sings between his acting stints, has a new non-film single, Yahin Hoon Main. Does it fit into the Indipop scene? And if the track does well, won’t it be integrated into one of his upcoming films?