Hindi Film Songs Based On Lyrical Theme

We added a new Tag Search feature on MySwar a few weeks ago. We have now introduced a new search attribute in it. You can now look for songs based on their lyrical theme.

MySwar currently classifies each song under one of the following themes:

Baby Shower, Birthday, Brother-Sister, Brothers, Celebration, Character, Children, Christmas, Dance, Devotional – Sikh, Devotional – Christian, Devotional – Hindu, Devotional – Islam, Diwali, Eid, Emotion, Family, Father-Child, Father-Daughter, Father-Son, Friendship, Ganesh Chaturthi, Garba, Grandparent, Holi, Holiday, Husband-Wife, In-Laws, Instrumental, Karwa Chauth, Krishna Janmashtami, Message, Miscellaneous, Mother-Child, Mother-Daughter, Mother-Son, Nature, New Year, Parent-Child, Parent-Daughter, Party, Patriotic, Personality, Place, Rakhi, Romance, Sisters, Situational, Wedding, Welcome

Here are a couple of interesting charts I created using Tag Search for different values of Vocal and Theme:

This chart presents the usage of different kinds of vocals in Hindi film songs over the years. It highlights some points I have made before in my BollySwar book series:

• Female solos dominated Hindi film music from the 1930s to the 1970s
• Duets were popular in the 1980s. Male solos made strides to match the number of songs with female solos.
• The 1990s was the decade of duets. Nearly 50% of Hindi film songs were duets in this period. It was also the first time in the history of Hindi cinema that more male solos were recorded than female solos.
• Male solos continued gaining popularity in the 2000s. This was at the expense of duets and female solos. However, most Hindi film songs continued to be duets.
• Male solos dominated Hindi film music in the 2010s and 2020s. More than 40% Hindi film songs recorded in this period were male solos.

This chart provides a breakup of Hindi film songs by lyrical themes. Unsurprisingly, more than fifty percent of Hindi films songs are romance-themed. The other major lyrical themes are Emotion, Situational, Message, Hindu Devotional, Instrumental, Character and Patriotic.

Do use the Tag Search feature for further explorations of the ocean that is Hindi film music and let us know if you have any feedback.