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The ubiquitous songs in India's commercial feature films play a dual role in Indian society: they serve as both film songs and pop songs for India's 800 million people. India is the largest film-producing country in the world and one fifth of its current annual production of approximately 750 films is made in Hindi, each film having an average of five to six songs (Dharap 1985). As the major form of mass entertainment available on a national scale, rivalled only by the government-run television network, Hindi cinema plays a prominent and influential role in Indian society. Yet its songs, which represent India's most popular music in the twentieth century, are relatively little known to non-Indians, either to scholars or to the general public. Musicologists and anthropologists have for the most part focused their attention on Indian classical and folk traditions to the neglect of film song. To counteract this imbalance I propose here to examine one important aspect of Hindi film song – its peculiarly eclectic nature – which plays a major role in the nationwide appeal of this popular music. I look at some of the ways in which these film songs are eclectic and possible reasons why they are so. Such a study provides insights into the role of this popular music in Indian society and culture and can thereby contribute to an understanding of the role of popular music generally in non-Western and developing countries.
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