Bollywood pop music sophistication of 2000s was way, way ahead of 1970s Bollywood pop music; Reflects growth in prosperity of Mumbai

The song Gulabi Aankhen Jo Teri Dekhi which was the subject of my post, Gulabi Aankhen Jo Teri Dekhi - Mohd. Rafi, RD Burman 1970 hit romantic song with racy music, http://ravisiyermisc.blogspot.in/2016/12/gulabi-aankhen-jo-teri-dekhi-mohd.html, dated 18th Dec. 2016, had racy music of 1970 Hindi (Bollywood) films. One standout aspect to me that I mentioned in that post was how the Western orchestra (Birmingham Symphony orchestra) in 2008 was able to rather closely replicate the Indian music producer's composition in Sonu Nigam's program, "Rafi Resurrected - An Evening In London", even if the music composition itself may not have been extraordinary, as viewed from today's Bollywood standards.

For me (and many others) as a young adult in the 1980s, Rahul Dev Burman provided racy/fast music (for which, in all probability, he took inspiration from Western pop music). That combining with golden voice of Mohd. Rafi and emotive lyrics of song writer, Anand Bakshi, made this song a super hit (and not for the music alone).

I think Hindi film songs music in 1970 (which is when the film corresponding to the song was released) was exploring combining of high energy and racy/fast Western pop music with Hindi lyrics and then popular Hindi film song singers. Most of the music producers then (including Rahul Dev Burman's elder brother Sachin Dev Burman) seemed to be producing more of soulful (and relatively slow & low-energy) music for songs in their Hindi films. Here is a classic and very popular then such soulful song with music composition by Sachin Dev Burman for a 1965 film, Guide, WAHAN KAUN HAI TERA, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCsdHLTf0cI, 6 min. 4 secs. Readers (listeners) may find the soulful music in this song somewhat appealing if they are into soulful stuff of the Indian Hindustani genre type. I must add that the song lyrics are kind of philosophical, and so appeal to many (including me). Very interestingly, the singer for this song is the music composer himself - Sachin Dev Burman.

Many readers (& listeners) may have heard Bollywood music of later years like the 2000s. In the past two decades or so, I think HUGE amount of money has flowed into Bollywood and so the orchestra and music studios that Bollywood music producers of this period have/had, would surely be orders of magnitude more sophisticated than what Rahul Dev Burman, perhaps a pioneer of fusion of Western pop music and Hindi film songs, had.

In 1970 I would have been 8 years old and was living in Dadar suburb of Bombay, which is quite in the heart of Bombay city, in a very big Central Railway officers' colony flat (my dad was then an officer in Central Railway). A few years later (perhaps around 1975), if memory serves me right, one of my elder brother's friends (his name was Nirmal, I think) who lived close to the Central Railway Officers' colony where we lived, got associated as an assistant music director or something like that to Rajesh Roshan, who was a music director for Bollywood then, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajesh_Roshan (1974 was his first film as music director). I mention this to show that I was living as a young boy in middle class and central part of Bombay, and that Hindi film industry in Bombay (Bollywood) did not seem to be so well off then. Nirmal, if I recall correctly, was very middle class type like our family even though we lived in a very big railway officers colony flat.

As I look back on the past four and a half decades since then, Bombay/Mumbai has witnessed an enormous amount of economic growth. In front of my eyes, till I moved from Bombay to Puttaparthi in 2002, I have seen Bombay becoming richer and richer. I think all that has led to Bollywood (Bombay based mainly) perhaps having enough money power to attract talent as well as provide latest equipment to produce far more sophisticated music today than what relatively poor Bombay could do in 1970. And the sophistication of the music produced nowadays by Bollywood film music producers clearly shows the higher level of expertise in playing a variety of musical instruments, and the higher quality and bigger variety of the musical instruments they use and the sophisticated music recording facilities and audio mixing equipment they have.

Perhaps this super hit Bollywood song from Dhoom 2, released in 2006 I believe (which I came to know of even in rural ashram town Puttaparthi), exemplifies the enormous change (improvement in terms of instruments, fusion of Western pop music with Hindi film songs, fitness of film hero/heroine dancers, dancing skill and grace etc.) I have seen in Bollywood: Dil Laga Na - Full Song | Dhoom:2 | Hrithik Roshan | Aishwarya Rai, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gavPKwaMFyc, 5 min 4 secs. By the way, one of the heroes and dancers in this song is Hrithik Roshan who is the son of Rajesh Roshan's (the music director I mentioned earlier) brother, Rakesh Roshan who was himself a film hero earlier. So one can say, we are seeing rather literally, the next generation to 1970s generation of Bollywood film actors & perhaps music directors as well, in the 2000s.

[To see the great improvement in dancing skills of Bollywood actors here is the not-so-great dancing in the movie clip of the 1970s song mentioned earlier, Gulabi Aankhen Jo Teri Dekhi, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sCSNzbQqMo, 3 min. 5 secs. Note that the film hero & dancer is (Late) Rajesh Khanna, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajesh_Khanna, who was perhaps the unchallenged superstar (and the first superstar) of Bollywood from 1970 to 1980.]

Even in 1980 when I turned 18, such a song-video (like Dil Laga Na of Dhoom2) in a Hindi film was UNTHINKABLE. Bombay/Bollywood was just too poor then! What an astonishing positive change in Bollywood fortunes I have witnessed myself in around the quarter century from 1980 to 2006 (Dhoom 2 release)! As I look back, I find it to be really unbelievable. But that's how much Bombay/Mumbai (and some other cities in India) has prospered in this time. And that prosperity shows in the sophistication level of Bollywood pop music today. I mean, Dil Laga Na of 2006 pop music sophistication is way, way ahead of Gulabi Aankhen Jo Teri Dekhi pop music of 1970.

But, of course, the golden voice of Mohammed Rafi in 1970, is still golden and not so easy to match even in much more richer Bollywood of the 2000s and 2010s.

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