Mavrix

Category: Pop culture

  • Tag Search – Hindi Film Songs Based On Raaga

    In the last post, I talked about a new feature on MySwar to search for Hindi film songs featuring specified musical instruments. In this post, I talk about looking for songs based on the usage of raagas. I have only superficial knowledge of Indian classical music and raagas. I did, however, have an inkling that very…

  • Tag Search – Hindi Film Songs Based On Musical Instruments

    We added two parameters in the Tag Search feature of MySwar – Raaga and Instruments. I’ll talk more about Raaga in another post. In this post, I’ll focus on the ability to look for songs based on the musical instruments used in them. The Instrument Tag Search allows users to search for songs containing a…

  • 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,…

  • Tag Search Improvements

    We made a couple of improvements to Tag Search: Go to MySwar, login and try out Tag Search if you haven’t already.

  • Hindi Cinema Bridges The North-South Divide

    [This is an excerpt from the e-book BollySwar: 1951 – 1960. It may not be reproduced elsewhere.] Cinema helped bridge the divide between the North and the South through a combination of dubbed films, remakes and inspired songs. By and large, Hindi films portrayed South Indian characters as stereotypical “Madrasis” with outlandish accents but they…

  • Madan Mohan’s Story In 5 Songs

    You may think it odd, but when I think of Madan Mohan, I can’t help but think about the parallels between his career and R.D. Burman’s. Both Madan Mohan and R.D. Burman had to work hard to grow out of their fathers’ shadows. R.D. Burman’s lineage is well known. What isn’t known well is the…

  • Music Directors Who Sang For Other Music Directors

    This post documents the work of music directors who have sung Hindi film songs for other music directors. I’ve limited the scope of this exercise by considering only those music directors who meet the following criteria: As a result, I’m not including artists like Shankar Mahadevan, Hemant Kumar and Vishal Dadlani who are music directors…

  • Relatives Collaborating In Hindi Film Songs

    This blog post started as a Twitter thread. The idea was to create a list of Hindi film music artists who are related in real life and share credits in a song. There were many artists who were related but didn’t share credits in any Hindi film song. These artists were not included in the…

  • Rise Of Recreated Songs

    [This is an excerpt from the chapter “2011 – 2020: Review of a Decade of Hindi Film Music” from the e-book BollySwar: 2011 – 2020.] The Hindi film industry had tried to come up with new ways of mass-producing hit songs ever since the 1990s. In the 1990s, they experimented with Jhankaar Beats and in…

  • BollySwar: 2011 – 2020 is now available

    As you may be aware, four volumes of the BollySwar e-book have been released so far – BollySwar: 1971 – 1980 (Volume 5), BollySwar: 1981 – 1990 (Volume 6), BollySwar: 1991 – 2000 (Volume 7), and BollySwar: 2001 – 2010 (Volume 8). I am happy to inform you that the new volume – BollySwar: 2011…