Best songs of year

Best Songs of 1956: Wrap Up 3

The SOY Award for the Best Solo by the ‘Other’ Female Singers for 1956 goes to?

My Overview Post on the best songs of 1956 indicates ‘other’ female singers sang at least two and half times of solo songs than Lata Mangeshkar. Those songs include some everlasting songs; even a most biased Lata Mangeshkar-fan cannot ignore these songs. After the overview post, Wrap Up-1 about the best male solos of 1956; Wrap Up-2 about the best female solos of Lata Mangeshkar, it is time to post the Wrap Up-3 about the best solos by other female singers.READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Best songs 1956: Wrap Up 2

The SOY Award for 1956 for the Best Solo of Lata Mangeshkar goes to?

SOY regulars are aware of the reasons why I am doing year-wise reviews of the best songs of a Vintage Era year going backwards, and a Golden Era year going forwards simultaneously. Vintage Years backwards, because of the joy of discovering the unknown, going back to when it all started in 1931. That was suggested by some SOY regulars who are no longer active now. And the Golden Era, because the new regulars suggested it and that, too, I found quite rewarding.

If you contrast with the last post on the Best Female Solos of 1939, there was no Lata Mangeshkar then; I often make my favourite quip, there was no Lata Mangeshkar before Lata Mangeshkar. In 1956 she was at the top of her vocal prowess. She defined how the leading lady is supposed to sing songs of joy and dancing, of sadness, of festivals. To be sure, the other female singers sang many more songs than her, and some of them did sing everlasting songs in the year. For statistical analysis, I depend upon our resident statistician/scholar N Venkataraman. Borrowing from him with thanks, Asha Bhosle sang 215 solos which is 1.40 times the number of songs by Lata Mangeshkar.  There were a total of 19 female voices (other than Lata Mangeshkar) who sang 371 solos in 1956. Top performers were Asha Bhosle, Geeta Dutt and Shamshad Begum, accounting for 86% of songs (of the other singers). The other ‘other singers’ accounting for a total of 14% included Mubarak Begum, Sabita Banerjee, Sudha Malhotra, Madhubala Jhaveri, Suraiya, Juthika Roy, Binota Chatterjeee etc. Thus, the other female singers sang many more songs than Lata Mangeshkar.READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Best songs of 1939: Wrap Up 2

And the SOY Award for the Best Female Solo of 1939 goes to?

One can make a general observation about the female solos of 1939. Following the long-term ratio, the female solos outnumber the male solos by a good margin in this year too. But in the era of dominance of KL Saigal and Pankaj Mullick, they are still familiar and top of the recall. But female solos in the vintage era suffer in comparison – there was no Saigal or Pankaj Mullick among them. I have earlier observed that there was no Lata Mangeshkar before Lata Mangeshkar. Among the 50/52 MEMORABLE SONGS in the year included in my overview post, the number of female solos is about 23 against 16 by male singers.

The female singing in Vintage Era was full of rich variety, but today it sounds very dated, though I like it a lot. The problem of the Vintage Era female singing is that a larger percentage is unknown. After my Overview Post, and Wrap Up 1 about male solos, now it is time for Wrap Up 2 about female solosREAD THE FULL ARTICLE

Best songs of 1956: Wrap Up 1

And the SOY Award for the best male solo of 1956 goes to ?

The 1950s are an era of plenty. This was the period when all the greats of the Golden Era were going great guns, creating their best music. Having said that, Naushad, one of the greatest, was absent in the year, but others were active. We are moving in tandem with review of 1939 songs. While in this year nothing was known about the singers of 61% songs, in 1956 that kind of unknown is less than 6%. All the great male playback singers – Rafi, Mukesh, Manna Dey, Hemant Kumar, Talat Mahmood and Kishore Kumar – were singing outstanding songs. Talat Mahmood is an interesting case. Among the great male playback singers, he faded the earliest. He shone like a meteor in the early 50s; and late 50s onwards, his best was over. In the year 1956, we find a number of his memorable duets, but his great solos are few and far between. Contrast this with his spectacular songs up to 1955. Mahendra Kapoor’s glorious period was yet to arrive.

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Best male solos of 1939: Wrap Up 1

In the Vintage Era review of songs, we have reached the end of the 30s. In a stark reminder of our poor record of preserving our legacy, our Resident Scholar, N Venkataraman, gives a stark figure that only 4 Hindi films – Pukar, Aadmi, Dushman, Durga – are available in public domain for viewing. These are from famous production houses: Minerva; Prabhat; New Theatres and Bombay Talkies. Talking of Venkataraman ji, he is a great asset to SOY. In addition to songs, he was very prompt in correcting any inaccuracy in historical (general history) details.

It appears some good quality video links of songs beyond the above four films are available on the YouTube. In my Overview Post, I had given a broad statistics that of the total number of songs in which song titles are known in the year, in less than 40% of the songs singers are known. It is not surprising that so much of our music is just not available. That is no reason for the mental barrier some music lovers feel in accessing the Vintage Era music. But they all have a sense of discovering never heard before gems.

The comments veered over great deal of history of that period, sometimes with a generous dollop of opinions. Overall, a very satisfying discussion. I thank all the participants for their active participation.

Coming back to the Wrap Up 1 about Best Male Solos, this was the era of KL Saigal (Dushman) and Pankaj Mullick (Kapalkundala) and they did sing everlasting songs which are remembered till date. I find Jagmohan’s Mujhe na sapnon se bahlaao is also from this year. This has to be one of his earliest non-film songs, and it is among his most recognizable songs.READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Best songs of 1956

And the winners are

Readers would be surprised to see this post, and I must say, some very pleasantly. Because for the last few years there has been a growing clamour that I should go forwards from 1956 onwards. The reasons given are: (i) It is difficult to relate to Vintage Era music, most people have a mental barrier the moment we go to music of the 1930s and 1940s, (ii) A large number of films and music of the Vintage Era are no longer in the public domain. All valid points, and I have decided to relent and here is the discussion on the Best Songs of 1956.

Why 1956? And I have to recapitulate the years when I started the year-wise review of songs. Some active members – no longer active on the SOY – suggested that I do year-wise review of years before the Filmfare Awards were instituted going back to when the talkies started. The idea was perhaps that Filmfare Awards were not a true measure of quality of the music and Filmfare Awards started from 1952 with Baiju Bawra. Later, I discovered there were gap years in 1953 and 1955. Hence the detailed coverage started for the years 1955, 1953 and 1951 backwards. The readers may read to appreciate the first post in the series, i.e. Best songs of 1955. Now that the beginning of the talkies 1931, when it all started, is in sight, I have pleasure in discussing the Best songs of 1956. So every year you would have two reviews – a Vintage Year, and a year from 1956 onwards.

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1939 best songs

Wishing everyone a very Happy 76th Anniversary of our Republic Day

Now we are entering the thirties, the last stretch going back to when it all began. The first talkie film was made in 1931. Most of the early stars of talkie films carried on from the silent era. The change of era also exposed the shortcomings of many silent film superstars in adjusting to the demands of talkie films, mainly in dialogue delivery and singing abilities. Some made a gradual exit. This also sowed the seeds of professional playback singing. The playback technology had been discovered in 1935/1937, but the constraints of recording technology meant that it was yet to be fully operational in practice. All this turmoil meant that the change of era did not herald a complete transition from silent to talkie era. Silent films still continued to be made for quite a good number of years into the talkie era. The year 1939 was the end of the 30s. Therefore by 1939 the last silent film must have been made a few years ago. Here I am not talking about largely silent films like Pushpak (1987) and Black, which were largely silent because of artistic reasons, just as Schindler’s List (1993) was a b&w film.READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Best songs of 1940: Wrap Up 3

The Award for the Best Duet of 1940 goes to?

If you look at the broad statistics in my Overview Post on the best songs of 1940, you would see out of total 351 songs in the year, whose singers are identified, the ratio of male solos, female solos and duets are 1:1.47:1.19. This may not follow the long-term average of male solos to female solos to duets, but it does follow the general trend that female solos far outnumber male solos, and duets too are generally much more than male solos. Whether 19% differential of the duets over male solos is statistically significant or not is best left to the professional statistician. But I have mentioned several times that in music the impact of a particular singer is not necessarily commensurate with statistics. This phenomenon was particularly pronounced in the era of KL Saigal and Pankaj Mullick when their songs pulled their weight much above their numbers.READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Best songs of 1940: Wrap Up 2

And the Award for the Best Female Singer goes to?

The year 1940 also shows preponderance of Female Solos over Male Solos in total numbers, in line with the  long-term trend, as evident in the list of MEMORABLE SONGS in the Overview Post. But there the comparison ends. Music is never about total numbers, it is about overall impact. If you see the Wrap Up 1 about the best male solos of 1940, the year witnessed overwhelming dominance of the New Theatres stalwarts, KL Saigal, Pankaj Mullick, and KC Dey. Their songs are top of the recall.READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Best songs of 1940: Wrap Up 1

And the Award for the Best Male Singer goes to?

1940 was a year of churning in the film world. It came at the transition of the first decade of spoken films, 1930s, and the beginning of the 1940s. It was a churning of musical styles when one kind of music making was coming to an end, and another was showing its sprouts. There was also a churning in established studios like the Bombay Talkies – because of the death of its owner Himanshu Rai; and the New Theatres of Kolkata, which was struck by a fire destroying most of their prints. However, these tragedies did not deter them from creating some great films and outstanding music. I have written about the general scenario in my Overview Post of the best songs in 1940.READ THE FULL ARTICLE