Shabana Azmi, Vidya Balan rue decline of lip-synch songs

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At the Mumbai Academy of Moving Images (MAMI) Festival 2024, Vidya Balan moderated a Masterclass with Shabana Azmi, who has completed 50 years in cinema. Amidst the pith that was discussed was the near-elimination of lip-synched songs in Hindi cinema. And both acting stalwarts were unanimous in their views  about this unique aspect of Indian cinema, even if their debuts with 31 years apart, and the former began as an art-house (read realistic rather than commercial cinema) actress!

Shabana, daughter to titanic poet-lyricist Kaifi Azmi and wife to writer-lyricist Javed Akhtar, said, “I lament the loss of songs being sung in (lip-) synch because, in Hindi films, we tell our stories through songs. These songs were like little philosophies that captured life’s moments. We had a song for every situation, creating a nostalgic connection. However, in an effort to be modern, we are replacing the song with something no one is paying attention to.”

Vidya added, “I absolutely miss lip-synching to songs; they have now been relegated to the background. I also feel that the urge to be universal is robbing the Hindi film industry of its unique essence.”

Two illustrious names in Hindi cinema are now finally voicing out a major concern for Hindi cinema that I have been thinking of for years!

The Roots

The roots of this “evil” probably lie a full two decades back. In 2005, at FICCI-FRAMES, the annual convention on Entertainment Business organized in Mumbai by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry, a 20-plus newbie “student” of cinema wanted to know why Hindi (and even Indian) cinema was replete with songs and dances as a very “unreal” component.

Sudhir Mishra, art-house and midstream filmmaker, incisively replied: “Do you know that some of the greatest and most famous poetry and music has been created for Hindi cinema in the 20^th century?”

Popular writer-lyricist Jaideep Sahni, in 2010, was on the Yash Raj Films’ payroll but had insisted on freedom to pen lyrics outside. When I asked the director of Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year, Shimit Amin, how he had used songs in his new film, Sahni, writer of songs as varied as Khallas (Company) and Labon ka karobaar (Befikre), grabbed the microphone from him, and told me, “See, it’s like this: lip-synch songs are our cinema’s USP! And most of today’s directors have lost what it takes to incorporate songs within a story! So I grab whatever chance I get to write lyrics, even in outside films!” Rocket Singh…, needless to grouch, had nothing by way of a proper lip-synch song, and the film anyway sank.

It goes without saying that film stars also need such songs to dance to at concerts, and shows as epic as the Kalyanji-Anandji-Amitabh Bachchan Jumma Chumma concerts in the 1990s, or shows based on  music, including composers’ and singers’ “Nites”, would not elicit packed houses in India and overseas, had the lip-synch songs not been the mainstay. And if a Raj Kapoor is famous for his chartbusters in Awara, Mithun Chakraborty became the darling of 1980s’ Russia with his chartbusters from Disco Dancer.

A Dutch gentleman, known to be an ardent fan of Mohammed Rafi, actually came to India to record his vocal versions of Rafi songs in a small but well-known Mumbai studio without knowing a word of Hindi! Back home, he came up with CDs of his songs and they sold phenomenally! A similar situation happened with the chief of the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, who became a fan of Rafi and held shows in UK of instrumental versions of Rafi’s hits. He then decided to come up with an album of these tracks with a vocalist, and approached Sa Re Ga Ma (HMV earlier) in UK, who suggested Sonu Nigam’s name to sing them.

In Paris, a musician named Pascal Feni recorded an entire album of Indian film songs (with most, not all, from Hindi films!) with top Indian singers and got (Laxmikant-)Pyarelal to arrange the album, though only two of the 12 tracks were composed by L-P! Needless to say, all were lip-synched songs, beginning with the title-track of Shankar-Jaikishan’s An Evening In Paris.

Passing Respite

From 2008, the trend of not having lip-synched songs grew in Hindi cinema. However, in 2010, Salman Khan and Sajid-Wajid brought back the lip-synched song album in full force with Dabangg, which also became that year’s biggest hit and musical album. However, with the emergence of younger filmmakers, teh Dabangg influence on trends was short-lived.

Many filmmakers, brought up on Western or other overseas cinema, changing sensibilities among the financiers, the affliction mentioned by Jaideep and finally the lockdown when films began to be majorly tailored for OTT viewing, have all made the lip-synch song today all but vanquished as an entity. Transiently appealing dance numbers with visual grandeur/ skin-show or both and no coherent situation or understanding of characters do not count, after all, as the classical Hindi film song.

“Which is sad!” says veteran distributor-exhibitor Raj Bansal, whose family has been in the business for over five decades. “Music is our culture. Even today, filmmakers are missing the truth that the biggest hits in the last two years alone—Pathaan, Gadar 2, Jawan, Animal and Stree 2, have had at least one chartbuster!”

It is sad to say here that, while most of the regional industries have not relegated this traditional form that is Indian cinema’s identity to the (literal) background, Hindi cinema has almost dispensed its USP. And die-hard optimists will always wait for the reality check among the powers-that-be for the return of the form that Shabana and Vidya rue about.