Music OnLine : Bollywood

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This Bengali singer is as sought after in India as she is in Bangladesh. Highly recorded, Yasmin is known for both her film and folk music work. Her voice is a refreshing change from the Bollywood standard; though she can hit the high notes, she has a throatier base that gives heft to her performances.

Anand is an adventurous member of Bollywood's young crop of music directors. He certainly takes his cues from artisst like Anu Malik and A.R. Rahman, but there's a sense of playfulness that can elude those directors. (Would Rahman ever write a song with the refrain "Take a chill pill"?) Hip-hop, tabla, pop and blues harmonica can all fit into a single Anand song, but he also has a love for Indian folk and Arabic pop that makes for fresh, grounded compositions.

Raised in London and now based in Mumbai, Kamaal Khan is quickly becoming one of Bollywood's hottest playback singers. Thanks to a friendship with the influential Khan brothers (including heartthrob Salman Khan), Kamaal got a break singing his pop hit "O Oh Jaane Jaana" for Sohail Khan's Pyar Kiya To Darna Kya. Khan's future projects include composing for films and possible collaborations with Pato Banton and Stereo Nation.

Kumar Sanu's voice dominated 1990s Bollywood, which is no surprise considering his numerous comparisons to Kishore Kumar. The 1990 soundtrack for Aashiqui opened the floodgates for Sanu's career; the soundtrack was a phenomenal, award-winning hit that helped Sanu to go on to win five consecutive Filmfare awards (1990-94). After recording hundreds of albums, Sanu began to slow down, becoming more choosy and branching out into acting in films from his native Bengal. Sanu was born Sanu Bhattacharya.

This gifted composer created some of Bollywood's most memorable songs, but he was known as a stubborn renegade who refused to record Lata Mangeshkar and demanded high prices for his work. Nayyar was born in pre-Partition Lahore in 1926. Though he had little formal musical training, he often drew on the sounds of his native Punjab. After several false starts in Bollywood, 1954's Aar Paar for director Guru Dutt began a long and mutually beneficial collaboration which also spawned Mr. and Mrs. 55 and CID. Nayyar also took on a young singer named Asha Bhosle. Their partnership helped launch her career thanks to soundtracks for films like Naya Daur, Howrah Bridge and Ragini. But Nayyar's fortunes fell abruptly at the end of the 1950s when personality conflicts led to fewer jobs. From the '60s on Nayyar composed just a handful of soundtracks, though many of them were considered gems. In all those years, Nayyar famously never recorded Lata Mangehskar because he considered her "thread-like" voice too thin for his compositions.

One of the premier voices of new Bollywood, Udit Narayan's career took off when he sang the award-winning "Papa Kehte" from 1988's Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak. Further awards followed for Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge and Raja Hindustani, and he's sung the title tracks for memorable films including Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and Dil To Pagal Hai. But Narayan was not always a film star; he actually began as a folk singer in Nepal, performing for Kathmandu Radio.

Talat Mahmood was one of the most respected voices in Bollywood for years. Born into a prominent Lucknow family, Mahmood came to prominence as a ghazal singer, thanks in part to the huge 1944 hit "Tasveer Teri Dil Mera Behela Na Sakegi." He began singing and acting a bit in Calcutta's film industry and made a successful move to Bombay in 1949. His good looks and polished manners only helped his reputation as an adept, smooth artist who could both sing and act. Known as the King of Ghazal, Mahmood passed away in 1998.

This universally respected brother duo were top composers in the 1960s and '70s, though they won fewer awards than their counterparts. Praised for their devout faith and involvement in charitable causes, the brothers were (in some ways) most remarkable for their ability to rise above the infighting and backstabbing that characterized so much of Bollywood. But they've also produced an incredible body of work that includes Zanjeer, Haath Ki Safai, Hera Pheri and Muqaddar Ka Sikander, Bedard Zamana Kya Jaane and Kora Kagaz.

A composer who came of age in the 1970s and early '80s, Bappi Lahiri got his start composing for Bengali films before he made the move to Bollywood. A precocious singer and musician, Lahiri's parents were both singers and he actually wrote his first film song at the age of 14. Despite charges of crass commercialism and catering to the lowest common denominator, Lahiri has always been known for his bright compositional style and uninhibited borrowing (some would say plagiarism) from other songs. He will forever be aligned with the disco era, thanks to his 1981 soundtrack for the film Disco Dancer.

One of India's greatest film composers, Salil Chowdhury was the son of a Bengal doctor who grew up witnessing the barbarism of British colonization first-hand. After the Bengal famine of the 1940s, Chowdhury joined the Communist party and began penning songs of resistance that are celebrated to this day. As Chowdhury's talent blossomed, it became clear he would change the face of Bengali popular music. (His body of songs now have their own name: "Salil sangeet.") Chowdhury made the leap to Bollywood in the 1950s and had great success with soundtracks for films like 1958's Madumathi. His early exposure to both Western classical music and indigenous folk led to an unusual versatility and penchant for complexity that set him apart from other composers. He was also a terrific singer and skilled at playing many instruments. Chowdhury died in 1995.

A singer renowned for his sweet, almost otherworldly timbre, Mukesh is one of the greats of the classic Bollywood period. Early work with the composer Naushad on the soundtracks to Mela (1948) and Andaaz (1949) and with Shankar Jaikishan on the unforgettable Barsaat helped launch his career. He quickly established himself as the voice of actor Raj Kapoor, a fruitful partnership that ran from the late-1940s until the '70s. He was known for years as the "tragedy king" because of his deeply emotive vocal work on sad songs. An ill-advised bid for acting roles in the mid-'50s led to a decline in his fortunes, but Mukesh rebounded later in the decade, returning to singing and remaining in the spotlight until his 1976 death in Detroit.

Rajesh Roshan is about as close to Bollywood royalty as you can get: his father was the famed composer Roshan, his brother Rakesh is a film director, and his nephew Hrithik is one of India's biggest heartthrobs. But Rajesh wasn't immediately interested in the film industry -- he came to composition only after his father's death, reluctantly taking music lessons at his mother's behest. Unsurprisingly, he showed some talent, and soon he was apprenticed with the music director team Laxmikant Pyarelal. His first soundtrack offer was for the Mehmood film Kunwara Baap, and more offers followed from there. Despite accusations that he was cashing in on his father's name, Roshan went on to compose several classic scores for films including Julie, Des Pardes and Yaraana.

One of Bollywood's last singer-actors, Suraiya was a raving beauty with giant, almond-shaped eyes who gained a hysterical following in India in the 1940s and '50s. She began as a child star in the early-'40s and later made a few films with K.L. Saigal, a singer-actor who was deeply influential for a generation of male playback singers. The late-'40s saw her at her peak, with such films as Dillagi and Pyar Ki Jeet flooding the country with her songs. In the early-'50s her career began to flounder and a series of personal problems deepened the slide. Though she came out retirement a handful of times, she lived in relative seclusion until her death in 2004.

Their name may sound seedy, but the Netherlands' Kraak and Smaak really just want to have a good time. That's evident from their funk- and Fender Rhodes-fueled recordings, and their full-band live shows make a good time imperative for all in attendance. The core trio of Mark Kneppers, Oscar De Jong and Wim Plug started out as a studio project in 2003 with a string of well-received EPs, but then found fame with their live act, swelling the stage with drums, bass guitar and three vocalists in addition to the boys' own keyboards, percussion and electronic gear. Anticipated staples on the festival circuit, they routinely rock events like Coachella, Glastonbury and the Big Chill, and their easygoing grooves have translated to regular radio play the world over. In 2008 they released Plastic People; their third album, it featured collaborations with Moloko's Mark Brydon and Stones Throw's Dudley Perkins -- and even an unusual cover of "Man of Constant Sorrow" that fused country, Bollywood and soul. Much like Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy," the single "Squeeze Me" is a slab of future-vintage funk with virtually universal appeal.

Anu Malik has been both as celebrated and as denigrated as a public figure can be. His detractors call him an A.R. Rahman rip-off and accuse him of lifting melodies from others' songs to beef up his own compositions. (This isn't entirely untrue: in 1995 he used the melody from Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's "Mera piya ghar aaya" for the Yaraana soundtrack without crediting the original, and websites abound with other instances of alleged theft.) He's also been accused of sexual harrassment. Yet despite the issues Malik, whose father was also a film composer, often finds himself in high demand. Director Gurinder Chadha (Bend It Like Beckham) chose him to compose music for Bride and Prejudice, her 2004 Bollywood remake of the classic Jane Austin story. Soundtracks including Ashoka, Ishq, Border and Refugee rank among the biggest hitmakers of the '90s and the new millenium.

The consensus is that Alka Yagnik was in the right place at the right time. The place was Bollywood and the time was the '80s -- just as Asha Bhosle and Lata Mangeshkar were starting to slow down. The daughter of a classical singer whose dreams of success were cut short by a throat problem, Yagnik claims that her singing was a hobby that evolved almost accidentally into a career. But the truth is she was an All India Radio artist at the age of 8, won a Sugam Sangeet competition in Calcutta at age 11, and was singing for composers like Laxmikant and Rajesh Roshan before she hit puberty. Yagnik broke into films thanks to a few key introductions, and she enjoyed steady work through the '80s but saw no major hits until 1988's "Ek Do Tin Char" for the film Tezaab. Songs like "Panchi Nadiya" (Refugee) and "Tu Mile Dil" (Criminal) only extended her influence, and she's gone on to win four Filmfare awards.

Gurbachan Singh Sachdev is the kind of musical icon you can't mess with. As the world's acknowledged master of the bamboo flute, or bansuri, he's got cred to burn and his music is the kind of stuff that will transfix angry animals and encourage serpents to coil back into their lairs. But it wasn't always smooth sailing for Sachdev, who was born into a nonmusical Punjabi family. As a child he was transfixed by shepherds' flute playing and by the time he was 14 he knew he wanted to play music, though his father was deeply opposed. Fortunately his music-loving mother (who was also a singer and harmonium player in her own right) continued to encourage his love of music. After college, it took Sachdev six years to find Vijay Raghav Rao, his musical guru, whom he studied with for the next 12 years. Together they found work in the Bombay film industry but Sachdev ultimately abandoned Bollywood's westernized compositions -- and avoided fashionable fusions -- to continue exploring the depths of traditional classical music. The choice paid off: Sachdev's recordings and live performances are renowned for their subtlety, tonal richness and emotional heft.

A talented singer whose career has been inextricably bound to her personal life, Anuradha Paudwal seemed poised to take over Bollywood in the 1980s. She won a series of Filmfare awards for songs in films including Ustav, Aashiqi and Beta, and she was widely sought after. But her outspoken nature didn't serve her well in the film industry's dog-eat-dog atmosphere: Paudwal accused Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle of monopolizing the industry (not far from the truth) and found herself suddenly ostracized -- almost no film director would work with her. She moved to the T-Series label, working with Gulshan Kumar (who was also rumored to be her lover), and her star rose again. Unfortunately, an ill-conceived exclusive deal with T-Series slowed her momentum, and she was largely unheard from in film until after Kumar's untimely demise -- he was murdered in 1997.