My Favourite Lata Mangeshkar Songs - 1980s

noreply@blogspirit.com (Khwaahish-e-Parwaaz) — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 16:20:00 +0530

The 80s in my opinion represent the worst decade for Hindi film music. In fact, the worst decade for Hindi films per se. Add to that Lata Mangeshkar's rapidly deteriorating voice quality. Her voice had shown signs of deterioration in the 70s as well, but a few composers like Jaidev, Khaiyyam and Salil Chowdhury composed some outstanding songs for her. 80s were dominated by Laxmikant Pyarelal, whose output ranged from really good to sheer noise (especially in the second half of the decade), R D Burman, who thankfully continued to compose melodious tunes for Lata, and Bappi Lahiri who, in the words of Baradwaj Rangan, "was doing to Hindi film music what the villain usually did to the hero’s younger sister". For some strange reason even in the 80s, most composers continued to make Lata sing at a very high pitch, which was once her forte, but now ended up making her sound shrill. She would have effortlessly sung these compositions a decade or two back, but now seemed to struggle once too often.

Ironically, my obsession with Lata Mangeshkar's voice started in my growing up years in the 80s, when my exposure was mostly to atrocities like Jaate Ho To Jao (Desh Premee, Laxmikant Pyarelal), Mara Thumka (Kranti, Laxmikant Pyarelal), Chal Chameli Baagh Mein (Krodhi, Kalyanji Anandji), Humka Le Chal Yaara (Painter Babu, Uttam Jagdish), Chal Bhag Chalein (Kalyug Aur Ramayan, Kalyanji Anandji), Disco 82 (Khuddar, Rajesh Roshan), etc. It is only now that I call them "atrocities". At…

Urge to Fly - hindi

My Favourite Lata Mangeshkar Songs - 1980s