From our last blog and last discussion on the music era, we divided the full Indian Musical panorama in 4 Eras. Last two eras we briefly discussed in the previous posts.  In this post we will talk about Commercial Era (1985-2000)

This era was special as commercial films mostly took the center spot and there were lot of movies and specially music was made to cater to the requirement of commercial films. In this period there were several Bollywood commercially successful movies were made to name few.

• Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar (1992)
• Roja (1992)
• Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jaayenge (1995)
• Andaz Apna Apna (1994)
• Hum Aapke He Kaun (1994)
• Rangeela (1995)
• Raja Hindustani (1996)
• Dil to Pagal Hai (1997)
• Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998)
• Hum Saath Saath Hai (1999)

All the above movies were the superhit of that time and all of them are pure entertainment/family movies with romance tempering. Songs/Music of these films are known as superhit of 90s.

It was mostly romantic and melodious music, we were just in the years of Globalization and Consumerism (at its peak), west was having very substantial impact on developing nations like India now. India was a good market for developing countries to expand their presence not to sell their products but for the cheap labour for sure. We had problems carried forward after the Independence and the war (with both Pakistan and China)  and still there were tensions between India and Pakistan. All of this happening but inclination was towards materialistic empowerment.

At the same time there is the next evolution in the technological side. We were seeing personal computers coming in the reach of the people. Internet adoption/penetration in the market was also in its very intial phase. With the technological advancement music was recorded with the better recording instruments (recording studios).

All of this political, socio-economic, globalization impacted music  of this time. We had new music directors started getting fame in this time mentioning few “Jatin-Lalit” duo, “A.R.Rahman”, “Nadim-Shravan” duo, “Anu Malik” and list has so many but they did get good fame because of their songs.

These singers ruled the 90s era. The list is endless, we are covering few eminent ones here. I know like every list this is also not a complete one, unintentionally some might get missed but as and and when we review and finds out we publish. We will also cover every one of these singers in our separate blogs.

• • • • • Udit Narayan
        • Alka Yagnik
        • Kumar Sanu
        • Babbi Lahiri
        • Sadhna Sargam
        • Sonu Nigam
        • Shaan
        • Abhijeet Bhattacharya
        • Babul Supriyo
        • Krishna Kant (KK)
        • Hariharan
        • Kavita Krsishnamurthy
        • Anuradha Paudwal
        • Alisha Chinai
        • Lucky Ali
        • Falguni Pathak
        • Balasubramaniam
        • Jagjit Singh
        • Palash Sen (Euphoria Band)

Some of the melodious songs which we still cherish and lovingly call them 90’s songs. The period was full of romantic songs and we will publish selective list of all time hits of this era.

Happy reading and keep contributing in whichever way you can contribute to this art. This is melody, this is expressive and things which can’t be expressed sometimes in words can be expressed through music. Lyrics and words are powerful and when they are married to melody/rhythm, that power is enormous.