Bollywood Disco

Bollywood Disco is rooted in the masala film, the genre frequently but erroneously synonymous with Hindi cinema in the Western imagination. Named after a mix of spices, these movies offer something for everyone: drama, action, comedy and romance. Masala films are designed to entertain audiences of multi-generational families and are a cornerstone of the industry across India. As the genre solidified in the 1970s, it continually absorbed different entertainment traditions, among them choreographed musical set pieces. These elaborate production numbers added variety to the story in tone and pacing while advancing the plot.

The music in early masala films tended to be in a slow and sentimental ballad style, but the immense global success of 1977’s Saturday Night Fever helped change that. Its influence was felt worldwide, including in Mumbai, where directors and producers saw the potential for adapting disco music and melodrama to Hindi and hopefully replicating its box office receipts.

Around the same time, the singer/songwriter/producer Bippi Lahiri emerged as a major player in Indian music and film soundtracks. When he began experimenting with disco in 1979, he found that ideas from the Nāṭya Shāstra, an ancient Sanskrit handbook for the arts, fit perfectly with his goal — that music and art should conjure a vivid and lived-in universe. And the persistent rhythmic foundation of disco was elastic enough to support a kaleidoscope of moods and textures.

Lahiri released dozens, if not hundreds, of soundtrack albums in his lifetime, and in the 1980s era of Bollywood Disco music, he was cranking out four or five per year. His music was anarchic, ecstatic and psychedelic. The title song from 1983’s Karate is a quintessential example of his work. The eight-minute epic begins with a throbbing bass drum, American gospel piano, ricocheting electronic percussion and surf guitar. Chanted background vocals drift in and out of the mix, trading lines with the dubbed-out voice of singer/collaborator Amit Kumar. The constantly shifting instrumental and vocal textures fulfill the goal of a self-contained world derived from the Nāṭya Shāstra. To Western ears, they exist in the same arena as the techno and house mixes that were popping up in clubs around the same time. But the blistering intensity and organic warmth of Karate and so many songs like it make it distinct from Western dance music. 

Bippi Lahiri probably was the most dominant and prolific figure in Bollywood Disco,  likely the musical director of a soundtrack even if he didn’t perform on it. But it’s misleading to view this music as a product of a single auteur. It was deeply collaborative, and many names showed up again and again.

Asha Bhosle, whose edgy diva-like image and gorgeously resonant soprano vocals helped define the era, was one of them. Another, Usha Uthup, had a similarly wide stylistic range, but her recordings shone when her hypnotic voice was wedded to spare, electronic beats, while Nazia Hassan pushed the boundaries of disco to near-industrial extremes. The flamboyant excess of American and European disco has long been out of fashion, but Bollywood’s existence is predicated on flamboyance and excess. The sheer volume of great music from the time can obscure countless innovative artists, and Bollywood Disco is a subgenre that rewards deep dives.

By the mid-1980s, the new talent and technology were settling. The initial burst of excitement shifted towards professionalism. Some of the wildest experimentation became routine. But all the major artists of the time had long, storied careers into the decades after, and the firehose of unbridled, genre-agnostic creativity that defined Bollywood Disco still resonates and thrills unlike anything else in popular music.

Joshua Levine

Kasam Paida Karnewale Ki [Original Soundtrack] cover

Kasam Paida Karnewale Ki [Original Soundtrack]

Anjaan, Bappi Lahiri, Salma Agha, Vijay Benedict