Thread by @anupampom

A thread on how bollywood film music was shaped in 1950s to 1990s..as viewed through binaca geetmala charts which were said to reflect popular taste.

I scraped the data of these charts from web and the csv file is here..
drive.google.com/file/d/1LrCn8a…

Let's plot Lata mangeshkar's career over the years..
rpubs.com/anupampom/lata…

similar plots on rafi ,kishore,asha.. we clearly see the rise of asha/kishore kumar in 70s ( with rise of RD burman) continuing in 80s when "acting" the song became as important as singing it
rpubs.com/anupampom/asha…
rpubs.com/anupampom/kish…
rpubs.com/anupampom/rafi…

A comparative trajectory of top music directors from 1950s to 1980s
rpubs.com/anupampom/musi…

will add to this thread, regarding how the music director-singer networks evolved and possibly text/length analysis of bollywood songs over years.when i find some more time

Most common "popular collaborations as per binaca charts. Observations-
1. Lata and her boys "Laxmipyare" are far ahead
2. RDB had greater hits with lata than Asha
3. Burmans loved kishoreda

An interactive plot of RDBurmans songs n career by years's .
rpubs.com/anupampom/rdbi…

1. RDB's career had long latency,(very unusual)between 1961-1967 he also ghost composed many of his dad's SD burman's songs namely guide and teen deviyan.
2.His fall was swift post mid eighties

vidhu vinod chopra asked RD burman to channel his inner SD burman for kuch na kaho..for 1942 a love story when he was down in dumps..( 1942 a love story turned out to be RD's masterpiece)

A comparative trajectory of singers.
Rafi ruled in 60's. kishore in 70's n 80's,asha in 80's. while lata continued to rule 60s to 80s
Kishore kumar initially used to sing only for himself n Dev anand later that changed after aradhna when he became a superstar

Lets plot the lyricists now..
1. Anand Bakshi,Majrooh (50s to 90s)reigned for long
2. gulzar was pretty eclectic in songs he did.
3. Hasrat jaipur,shailendra were important figures often in combination with shankar jaikishen

Let's plot word cloud(shabdmegha)..which words are most commonly used in title of songs ..
1. have eliminated pronouns(mera/tera/tum and some other common words like ka/ki/hai etc)
2. we see words like dil/pyaar/yaad/chaand feature commonly

Let's plot informative tufte style slopegraphs..which explore musician singer collaboration over years for top singers- lata,rafi,asha n kishore

Lets do network analysis of singer/music director network till 1970(when RD Burman arrived and changed the sound of music)..

the bigger dots have high centrality (similar to way google ranks pages)

it is clear lata,rafi and shankar jaikishan ruled..

Shankar(a Telugu brahmin) and Jaikishen(a gujarati ) were as different as chalk and cheese ...had often ego issues...but when they collborated it was gold..their success set such high standards that when salim javed ruled the industry they called themselves "real SJ"

Lets plot network from 1971-1993..
Here we see RD burman,laxmi kant pyarelal lata mageshkar,asha bhosle,rajesh roshan achieving prominence..

Which actors had highest number of hit songs ?
Lets plot it first-

So who is the actor with highest number of hit parade?

Dev anand the evagreen star lords over superstars lrajesh and amitabh while our dancing dudes-shammi,jitendra,rajendra,shashi follow..

Lets plot network from 1971-1993.. Here we see RD burman,laxmi kant pyarelal lata mageshkar,asha bhosle,rajesh roshan achieving prominence..

Which actors had highest number of hit songs ? Lets plot it first-

So who is the actor with highest number of hit parade? Dev anand the evagreen star lords over superstars lrajesh and amitabh while our dancing dudes-shammi,jitendra,rajendra,shashi follow..

Most successful hindi movie albums by year(1954-1993)
interactive graphic here--rpubs.com/anupampom/albu…

Most successful music director,lyricist combination
Notice few very succesful combos..
LP-AB,
SJ-HJ/shailendra
naushad-shakkel badayuni
Father/son duo of sameer,anjaan prominent in 70s n 80s

Which were the most successful
singer/actor combination
Dev anand/Rajesh/amitabh-kishore
shammi/rishi -rafi
mukesh-raj kapoor

*ignore male/female asynchrony in the table*

This has to be considered in context of in(famous)fights
1. Lata/Rafi did not work for 2-3 years as he caustically referred to him as maharani and over royalty issues.
2. SD Burman/Lata didnt work for 3-5 yrs over ego issues
3. Amitabh/kishore didnt work together in mid 80s

of course OP Nayyar worked predominantly with rafi/asha, almost never with lata n then fell out with both asha(as she moved out on him) and rafi(due to OP's disciplinarian n tempestuous attitude).
Asha didnt claim the filmfare award she was awarded for Nayyar's movie in 1974

RDBurman changed the sound of music in 70s..added rhythm to the tune of golden era..
IMO this medley of his musical chartbuster HKKN to ishis popular best..of course he cld do tunes like his father as well..unlike many monochromatic music directors today

Music/Movie industry was forced by sanjay gandhi in 76 to do a program for popularising family planning in 76 at height of emergency- only the 'enfant terrible'-Kishore kumar and Anand Brothers(Dev and vijay resisted). An old clip

Many actors/actresses were shored up by regime for the 'family planning popularization' function in delhi. Here is an interesting video of shabana azmi n zeenat dancing to RD Burman's hare rama hare krishna.. Fun video though..:-)

will add some more interesting titbits on further exploration of dataset..;-)

A core property of networks(twitter,social media,collaboration)are authority,closeness and betweenness..

People with very diverse collaborations will have high betweeness/closeness ,while those with high output with restricted individuals(think superstars) might
hv incr authority but low closeness
cambridge-intelligence.com/keylines-faqs-…

Lets see what was happening in 50s..
Lata/SJ/OP nayyar high authority low closeness
hemant kumar high closeness
Rafi high closeness+authority

In 60s..
Lata/SJ high authority low closeness
asha high closeness (diverse) OPNayyar/SDburman then shifting to RDB
Rafi high closeness+authority

network stats for 60s

seventies we see lot of divergence between closeness (yesudas,rajeshroshan)and central figures(RDB,LP,asha,lata,kishore)
implying fixed combination n comfort level setting in

Eighties to 1993 a major churn-
Asha who had diverse collaboration restricts work with few(becomes reigning queen) post marriage to RD burman so closeness goes down but authority increases..
Lata becomes more collaborative n with LP at peak her authority also is high

Wow! this thread got some love from @viceindia , thank you @toutress , for doing this feature..appreciated!
featuring charts and a a(bit) of me ..:-)
vice.com/en_in/article/…