Music OnLine : Bollywood

Muzik (12/00, p.96) - 4 out of 5 - "...A kaleidoscopic swirl of pop, electronica and folk from all corners of the globe underpins Anjali's cooing vocals....complex but disciplined..."
NME (11/25/00, p.34) - 7 stars out of 10 - "...Draws a skewed lounge-pop sound out of arrangements rooted as much in Bollywood themes and '60s soundtracks as funk and hip-hop..."

Lata Mangeshkar dominates the soundtrack of this classic Shahrukh Kahn vehicle, dueting with Udit Narayan on no less than seven songs. (Her sister Asha Bhosle is relegated to a single song.) But for all its length, there's little padding on this beast -- these songs featured integrally in the film and discovered enough fresh melodies to stand out from the teeming Bollywood soundtrack crowd.

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.

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.

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.

Since the premise of the Cheetah Girls' 2008 Disney Channel Original Movie is that the Girls (sans Raven-Symone) are set to star in a Bollywood musical, it's pretty much a given that the soundtrack is going to be packed to the gills with samples of tablas, sitar and bhangra cuts. Cases in point: "Dance Me If You Can," the ebullient title track. But we're talking about the Cheetah Girls here, so there's also plenty of feel-good sentiment and booty-shaking beats. Case in point: uh, everything. Each Girl takes a solo; in fact, the album oddly ends on Kiely's sad slow jam.

There's a great scene in the 2001 film Ghost World when the grumpy protagonist Enid dances around to the kitschy musical strains of a go-go era Bollywood film. Well, Enid would have loved Teen Dance Music, a mysterious compilation of songs from unknown bands from 1960s China and Malaysia. Inspired by western pop, you'll hear go-go renditions of everything from a maraca-shaking James Bond theme with an Asian slant to "The A-Go-Go From River Kwai," which is, quite shockingly, just what it sounds like.

Forro in the Dark's early cadre of superstar supporters could have been the kiss of death for this young band. But the New York-based group of expat Brasileiros seems to be holding up under the pressure, releasing a debut that, while rough around the edges, has flashes of brilliance. Among them? David Byrne's otherworldly quaver on the forro standard "Asa Branca" and Bebel Gilberto cooing her way through "Wandering Sparrow." But the album gels best when it embraces its retro undercurrents: Check out the neo-1960s jam "Forrowest" or Miho Hatori's graceful, Bollywood-esque run on "Paraiba."

While a reprise of Bose's hits -- no matter how jazzed up -- will mainly be an exercise in nostalgia for many Latin pop fans, Papito has more to offer. It can't hurt to hear a bevy of current pop stars like Shakira, Juanes and Julieta Venegas burnishing songs that might otherwise show their age, but the secret ingredient is the production, which quietly but firmly underlines these tracks with everything from Bollywood strings to Cuban tres guitar to Chinese classical flourishes. Also, check out the Rhapsody Exclusive track "Hojas Secas," a duet with Mikel Erentxun.

The U.S. denied M.I.A. a visa to work on Kala, but she showed us by making an album that's an exercise in audio globetrotting, almost as if she was taunting us with all the directions she could go in. Pit stops include Bollywood psychedelia, clucking, chutney-bhangra, vocals from a South Asian Donna Summer, Nigerian MC Afrikan Boy, a teenage Australian Aboriginal hip-hop crew, tribal vocoders, electro-reed mouth organs, an apocalyptic rave, a Yeah Yeah Yeahs song about counterfeiting passports and Timbaland. Feel confused, even assaulted, yet strangely enticed? Ah, then, she's done it again.

While a reprise of Bose's hits -- no matter how jazzed up -- will mainly be an exercise in nostalgia for many Latin pop fans, Papito has more to offer. It can't hurt to hear a bevy of current pop stars like Shakira, Juanes and Julieta Venegas burnishing songs that might otherwise show their age, but the secret ingredient is the production, which quietly but firmly underlines these tracks with everything from Bollywood strings to Cuban tres guitar to Chinese classical flourishes. Also, check out the Rhapsody Exclusive track "Hojas Secas," a duet with Mikel Erentxun.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The U.S. denied M.I.A. a visa to work on Kala, but she showed us by making an album that's an exercise in audio globetrotting, almost as if she was taunting us with all the directions she could go in. Pit stops include Bollywood psychedelia, clucking, chutney-bhangra, vocals from a South Asian Donna Summer, Nigerian MC Afrikan Boy, a teenage Australian Aboriginal hip-hop crew, tribal vocoders, electro-reed mouth organs, an apocalyptic rave, a Yeah Yeah Yeahs song about counterfeiting passports and Timbaland. Feel confused, even assaulted, yet strangely enticed? Ah, then, she's done it again.

Trust us: You've never heard anything like Secret Chiefs 3's Book of Horizons. No, scratch that. So long as, at some point in your life, you've heard surf rock, Middle Eastern classical, death metal, drum 'n' bass, Ennio Morricone, the soundtrack to Exodus, free jazz, and Bollywood pop, you know this music's DNA; the novelty and genius comes in hearing it all in one song. Masterminded by guitarist/auteur Trey Spruance, Horizons employed a cast of 20-some musicians and track upon track of meticulous overdubs. The result just might drive you crazy. Hopefully in a good way, but we're not making any promises.

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.

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.