The influence of Western music in India has never been so immense, until now. All Hindi Bollywood songs are full of English lyrics. There’s a bit of Hip-Hop after every verse.
The Bollywood film industry never had the habit of imitating the Hollywood kids. Everyone knows that Indian filmmakers have copied movies, but the music was original. Musical movies and dancing to Hindi songs were the ingenuity of Bollywood.
With the success of Slumdog Millionare, Western audiences have become familiar with the Indian style of cinema. No Indian movie is complete without dance floors where all the main actors in the movie dance together. Choreography is a difficult business, not all famous celebrities agree to do certain steps. The choreographer adjusts the movements as desired.
The influence of western English music was always there, but it wasn’t as prominent on the main scene.
Tata Young’s Dhoom Machale
The first time Indian music lovers picked up a song in English was when ‘Dhoom’ was released in 2004. The song titled ‘Dhoom Machale’ was sung by Tata Young, all the words were in English except the title of course . The song turned out to be such a craze that even today you will see people dancing to this song at functions and parties.
Snoop Dogg rap song on ‘Singh is King’
In 2008, Snoop Dogg appeared in a music video along with Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar in a rap song. The video and song were an instant hit. It was the first time we saw a big international celebrity link up with Bollywood.
There are many other songs and several international musical artists have composed music in a Bollywood movie. Even the regional songs include hip-hop. Bollywood is slowly giving away originality and now focusing on what is in global demand.
I’m not complaining about the use of English, but the integrity of traditional Bollywood songs is compromised. With the increasing penetration of American music on our Indian television, youngsters are more interested in Western music. And for the Bollywood music industry to survive, it needs to change and adapt to more popular music styles.
