indian
...usic are widely popular elsewhere in the developing world, from Africa and the Middle East to Eastern Europe and other parts of Asia. 6) While it is difficult to generalize about such a vast and diverse entity, certain observations can be made about Indian popular music. Like classical Indian music and Indian folk music, it is overwhelmingly monophonic: melodies are sung or played solo, rather than in harmony with another singer. 7) The Indian music industry got off to an early start with the production of local recordings in 1901. By the 1950s the film industry had grown phenomenally, and soon became the largest in the world, producing some 700-feature films annually. Music directors like Naushad and S. D. Burman composed scores for hundreds of films, while top singers like Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, Mohammed Rafi, and Kishore Kumar have each recorded several thousand film songs. Most were sentimental love songs designed to fit the romantic and often escapist cinematic melodramas. 8) In the late 1970s and early 1980s the spread of cheap audio cassette players dramatically restructured the popular music industry. Since cassettes and cassette players are so cheap, portable, and durable, many millions of poorer rural consumers could afford them and thus enter the popular music market. As a result the popular music industry has become much more decentralized, and its products much more diverse in terms of style, language, and subject matter. 9) Indian popular music has continued to evolve and thrive. Western influence remains strong, and many film music composers borrow pop melodies from the West. Nevertheless, the thriving cottage-industry cassette producers still rely heavily on regional folk music for inspiration and ideas. In the United Kingdom, South Asians of Punjabi descent have popularized a dynamic hybrid style called bhangra, which typically combines Punjabi folk melodies with elements of disco, techno-pop, and dance-hall reggae. 10)...