Indian pop


Indian pop music, also known as Indi-pop, I-pop, or Hindi-pop, refers to pop music produced in India that is independent from filmi soundtracks for Indian cinema, such as the music of Bollywood, which tends to be more popular. Indian pop is closely linked to Bollywood, and the Asian Underground scene of the United Kingdom. The variety of South Asian music from different countries are generally known as Desi music. Pop music originated in the South Asian region with the playback singer Ahmed Rushdi's song ‘Ko Ko Korina’ in 1966 and has since then been adopted in India, Bangladesh, and lately Sri Lanka, and Nepal as a pioneering influence in their respective pop cultures. Following Rushdi's success, Christian bands specialising in jazz started performing at various night clubs and hotel lobbies in Karachi, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Dhaka and Lahore. They would usually sing either famous American jazz hits or cover Rushdi's songs.

History

Pop music began gaining popularity across the Indian subcontinent in the early 1980s, with Pakistani singers Nazia Hassan and Zohaib, forming a sibling duo whose records, produced by the Indian Biddu, sold as many as 60 million copies. Biddu himself previously had success in the Western world, where he was one of the first successful disco producers in the early 1970s, with hits such as the hugely popular "Kung Fu Fighting".
The term Indipop was first used by the British-Indian fusion band Monsoon in their 1981 EP release on Steve Coe's Indipop Records. Charanjit Singh's anticipated the sound of acid house music, years before the genre arose in the Chicago house scene of the late 1980s, using the Roland TR-808 drum machine, TB-303 bass synthesizer, and Jupiter-8 synthesizer.
The launch of MTV India and Channel V in late 1990s gave a huge push to India-pop music. It was this time when the music reached its greatest heights.
Until then, few singers like Usha Uthup, Sharon Prabhakar, and Peenaz Masani outside it were popular. Since then, pop singers in the latter group have included Daler Mehndi, Baba Sehgal, Alisha Chinai, KK, Shantanu Mukherjee a.k.a. Shaan, Sagarika, Colonial Cousins, Lucky Ali, and Sonu Nigam, and music composers like Zila Khan or Jawahar Wattal, who made top selling albums with, Daler Mehndi, Shubha Mudgal, Baba Sehgal, Shweta Shetty and Hans Raj Hans.
Besides those listed above, popular Indi-pop singers include Gurdas Maan, Sukhwinder Singh, Yo Yo Honey Singh, Mohit Chauhan, Papon, Zubeen Garg, Raghav Sachar Rageshwari, Vandana Vishwas, Devika Chawla, Bombay Vikings, Asha Bhosle, Sunidhi Chauhan, Anushka Manchanda, Neha Bhasin, Bombay Rockers, Anu Malik, Jazzy B, Malkit Singh, Raghav, Jay Sean, Juggy D, Rishi Rich, Sheila Chandra, Bally Sagoo, Punjabi MC, Bhangra Knights, Mehnaz, Sanober and Vaishali Samant.
In the late 2000s, Indi-pop music faced increasing competition from filmi music. Major pop singer stopped releasing albums and started singing for movies. Recently, Indian pop has taken an interesting turn with the "remixing" of songs from past Indian movie songs, new beats being added to them.

Lists

Best-selling albums

Music video streams

YearArtistSongYouTube streams
2017Guru RandhawaLahore750
2017Zack Knight and Jasmin WaliaBom Diggy
2017Guru RandhawaHigh Rated Gabru690
2014Rahat Fateh Ali KhanZaroori Tha650
2015Yo Yo Honey SinghDheere Dheere450