A tribute to old Hindi film music. Songs of the 30s through the 60s.

Best songs of year

Best songs of 1943: Wrap Up 2

Amirbai Karnataki-Parul Ghosh-Khursheed-Kanan Devi

September 19, 2022

And the Award for the Best Female Solo singer goes to ? If you browse through the Wrap Up 1 regarding the best solos of 1943, it was clearly a one-horse race with KL Saigal being the Pole Star. During Saigal-Noorjehan-era there was no female Saigal, or as I have said earlier a number of […]

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Best songs of 1943: Wrap Up 1

May 26, 2022

The SOY Award for the Best Male Singer goes to? There are years when a competition becomes a one-horse race. That is the case with the best male singer for the year 1943. On the one hand we have the landmark film Tansen starring KL Saigal and Khursheed, on the other we have Kismet and […]

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Best songs of 1943: And the winners are?

April 15, 2022

If 1944 was the year of Naushad’s Jewel in the Crown, Rattan, 1943 was the year of Kismet which became a cult film on the back of its music by Anil Biswas. The Master Khemchad Prakash was at the peak of his craft, and so were KL Saigal and Khursheed in the film Tansen which […]

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Best songs of 1944: Final Wrap Up 4

Khemchand Prakash-Naushad-Pankaj Mullick

October 30, 2021

And the Award for the Best Music Director goes to? When you think of the year 1944, you think of Naushad. That was the beginning of Naushad phenomenon with his Jewel in the crown, Rattan. This was his 13th movie, having debuted in 1940 as an independent music director, he already had five Silver Jubilees […]

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Best songs of 1944: Wrap Up 3

September 17, 2021

And the Award for the Best Duet goes to? In my list of 81 MEMORABLE SONGS in the Overview Post on the best songs of 1944, I counted 17 duets. This is quite a small number, but as we have seen in the reviews of other years, duets always punch above their weight. There is […]

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Best songs of 1944: Wrap UP 2

Amirbai Karnataki-Zohrabai Ambalewali-Noorjehan-Manju

July 21, 2021

And the award for the Best Female Song goes to? If you browse through my Overview Post on the best songs of 1944 and the Wrap Up 1 about the best male solos, two features would strike you immediately. One was the significantly large number of female solos compared to the male solos. And two, […]

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Best Songs of 1944: Wrap Up 1

July 6, 2021

And the award for the Best Male Solo goes to? In my Overview Post of the best songs of 1944, I had mentioned that in the total songs in the years in which the singers’ names were known, male solos to female solos to duets followed a ratio of 1: 3.69: 1.69. Thus, the male […]

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Best songs of 1944: And the winners are?

April 11, 2021

Season 2 of the year-wise reviews begins I have explained in my final wrap up of the review of songs of 1945 how the idea of year-wise reviews of the best songs of the year started and why I termed the year 1945 as the end of Season 1. There was doubt in my mind […]

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Best songs of 1945: Wrap Up 4

Shyam Sundar-Bulo C Rani-Anil Biswas-R C Boral

December 25, 2020

And the Award for the Best Music Director of 1945 goes to? And wishing everyone Merry Christmas Coming to the final Wrap Up 4, i.e the Best Music Director of 1945 is akin to the end of a Season of a web-series. For those who have not been with SOY since the beginning of the […]

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Best songs of 1945: Wrap Up 3

November 16, 2020

And the Award for the Best Duet goes to? We have seen in some years that either male solos or female solos may be tepid, but duets never disappoint. That has to do with combinatorics. If there are, say, 3 prominent male singers and 4 female singers in a year, there are 12 possible voice […]

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