bollywood

Hindi film songs, more formally known as Hindi Geet or filmi songs and informally known as Bollywood music, are songs featured in Hindi films. Derived from the song-and-dance routines common in Indian films, Bollywood songs, along with dance, are a characteristic motif of Hindi cinema which gives it enduring popular appeal, cultural value and context. Hindi film songs form a predominant component of Indian pop music, and derive their inspiration from both classical and modern sources. Hindi film songs are now firmly embedded in North India’s popular culture and routinely encountered in North India in marketplaces, shops, during bus and train journeys and numerous other situations. Though Hindi films routinely contain many songs and some dance routines, they are not musicals in the Western theatrical sense; the music-song-dance aspect is an integral feature of the genre akin to plot, dialogue and other parameters.: 2 The first song recorded in India by Gauhar Jaan in 1902 and the first Bollywood film Alam Ara (1931) were under Saregama, India’s oldest music label owned by RPSanjiv Goenka Group. Linguistically, Bollywood songs tend to use vernacular Hindustani, mutually intelligible to self-identified speakers of both Hindi and Urdu, while modern Bollywood songs also increasingly incorporate elements of Hinglish. Urdu poetry has had a particularly strong impact on Bollywood songs, where the lyrics draw heavily from Urdu poetry and the ghazal tradition. In addition, Punjabi is also occasionally used for Bollywood songs.

The Indian Music Industry is largely dominated by Bollywood soundtracks, which account for nearly 80% of the country’s music revenue. The industry was dominated by cassette tapes in the 1980s and 1990s, before transitioning to online streaming in the 2000s (bypassing CD and digital downloads). As of 2014, the largest Indian music record label is T-Series with up to 35% share of the Indian market, followed by Sony Music India (the largest foreign-owned label) with up to 25% share, and then Zee Music (which has a partnership with Sony). As of 2017, 216 million Indians use music streaming services such as YouTube, Hungama, Gaana and JioSaavn. As of 2021, T-Series is the most subscribed YouTube channel with over 170 million subscribers.

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