Bollywood Melodies: A History of the Hindi Film Song: A History of Hindi Film Songs [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

I picked up this book recently - and I thoroughly enjoyed. I've been wishing for a while for a concise resource on classic Bollywood music and this is pretty much the only thing out there that fits the description. Most books on Bollywood talk about the movies - which, frankly, I'm not a great fan of. My interest in Bollywood is limited to the songs from the "classic" period (which I'd define to be the late 40s through early to mid 70s). Anything after that is of limited interest to me. This book focuses on exactly the period I am interested in and it is an excellent resource for my re-exploration of the music of this period.

Overall it is well written and provides a lot of information. The author makes no pretense of objectivity - the book is full of his opinions and several reviews on the internet seem to have taken exception to this. Frankly, I don't see why they should. Presenting just a dry set of facts would take away from the enjoyment of the book. This isn't merely a history - it is a history-cum-critique and it is quite easy to filter out the opinion if you just want the history.

There are several flaws in this book that make it impossible for me to award it a perfect score. The biggest one is the lack of any citations - so we have no clue as to where he is getting his information from. We really do not get a good feel for which parts of his history are well documented and which parts are hearsay. The second flaw, in my opinion, is its incompleteness - a lot of significant artists get barely a mention or no mention at all. For example, he covers Hemant Kumar's work as a music director but has little to say about his singing; he has an interview with Manna Dey but doesn't discuss his music; a lot of the female singers who flitted in and out of Bollywood during Lata's heyday (like Suman Kalyanpur, Vani Jayaram etc) don't get a mention at all.

All of these people worked in the period he is focusing on - and not in later eras where omission is acceptable. I understand the space constraints he may have had and realize that he could not cover these people in great depth but a quick overview of the highlights of their careers would have added, at most another 5 pages to the book and made it a more complete work.

Still, above nitpicks aside, the book is a very nice one and I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in the history of Bollywood music.

This is a book written by someone who is in love with Hindi soundtrack music, and it shows in this short but very readable book.

There are several good things in the book.
- Firstly, it is short enough that it can be read from start to finish in one sitting. Given that a book on such a topic could well become an encyclopedic work, it is a commendable effort that the author is able to keep it to under three hundred pages, which included some 26 pages or so of song listings, and (I think) an eight page index.
- Second, there are enough pages devoted to most of the major figures in the world of Hindi soundtrack music, composers, lyricists, and singers included. Inordinate material is not devoted to any single artiste at the expense of some others. Where material on some of the early singers, composers, and lyricists is either not available or easily accessible, this cannot be helped.
- Thirdly, there are interviews with Pyarelal (of the Laxmikant-Pyarelal composer duo), Gulzar, Lata Mangeshkar, and Manna Dey. The interview with Gulzar for example is a refreshing change from most of the interviews you would have read on Gulzar, where the man is asked endless times to speak on his association with the legendary composer RD Burman. In the book, he speaks on the other composers like Sahir, Shailendra (who he considers the greatet lyricist of the Hindi music industry), and others. He does also speak on his partnership with RD Burman.
- Fourthly, the book is neatly divided to make it easy to read thematically, or even chronologically. There is a section on composers, which itself is divided into four sub-sections, the second on lyricists, and the third on singers. Each artiste is devoted roughly two to eight pages.

Expectedly, there are drawbacks and negatives also in this book.
- There are opinions in the book, that the author acknowledges as much, so that's a minor complaint with the book.
- Second, the book skims the surface of each artiste, but this again, considering the breadth of the book and the number of artistes considered, can probably overlooked.
- Thirdly, it is difficult to get a sense of any of the periods considered because the narrative is artiste focused. You would have to actually read the entire book and then collate the writing in separate chapters on different artistes to stitch some form of a sense of each of the periods, the decades, covered in the book.
- Fourthly, and deliberately so, controversies are neatly skirted. They are only alluded to briefly, but not covered in detail at all, nor their impact on the Hindi music industry analyzed. For example, the three year period when Rafi and Lata did not sing together in the early sixties, or when Raj Kapoor and Shankar-Jaikishan fell out for a brief period, or when SD Burman and Lata had a tiff and the former did not record any song with Lata for several years, and so on all had an impact on the Hindi movie music industry in some way or the other. These probably belong in another book.
- Finally, there are no references listed, so one really doesn't know what is opinion, what is known fact, what is hearsay...

Read this book all at once, or in snippets, or skim through the book as you please.

A good book for someone looking to get more acquainted with the Hindi music industry's history.

This is the Penguin Books India page on the book: [..]
This book lists for $13.42 on Amazon, but its list price is Rs 295 (US$6.15 at Rs 48 to the dollar), and you can pick it up at a 10-20% discount from some stores.