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.

Hindi films had long mixed song-and-dance styles, including cabaret numbers, before disco arrived. The worldwide success of the 1977 film Saturday Night Fever gave composers a prominent new sound to explore. 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 Bappi Lahiri emerged as a major player in Indian music and film soundtracks. He later recalled hearing disco in a Chicago club in 1979 and deciding to introduce the sound to India. 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 give the track the feel of a self-contained world. To Western ears, they exist in the same arena as the later house and techno mixes that grew from club culture. But the blistering intensity and organic warmth of “Karate” and so many songs like it make it distinct from Western dance music. 

Bappi 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.