(fwd) Was: No. of Lata songs
Sreenivas Paruchuri (sreeni@ktpsp1.uni-paderborn.de)
Wed, 21 Jan 1998 12:18:10 +0100 (MET)
From: skalra902@aol.com (SKalra902)
Newsgroups: rec.music.indian.misc
Subject: Was: No. of Lata songs
Date: 21 Jan 1998 00:17:43 GMT
Just read the very interesting (statistical) article by Ketan on the number of
Lata songs. Very informative indeed.
The immediate recollection that came to my mind was a letter in the India
Abroad sometime in 1989 by Dr. Surjit Singh (the diehard movie fanatic) :)))),
after a series of articles had been published in IA a few weeks earlier on
Lata's 60th birthday. According to his letter, she had a total of 5,076 songs
in Hindi, from the mid-40s to 1980, as per compilation done by him from the
four volumes of the Harmandir Singh Giit Kosh. Now I am quoting this from
memory, and I would like to invite Dr. Surjit Singh to join us in the
discussion here, and verify the No. of songs. If the 5,076 number is correct
upto 1980, the total songs by Lata would increase by three or four hundred, not
a huge jump, but still significant.
Taking Ketan's analysis further, if Asha sang, let us say, 250 songs every
year, from 1948 to 1998, i.e., 50 years, that is a total of 12,500 songs.
Include her songs in other languages, and the total could easily cross
20,000!!!!
However, the average number of Hindi films released has been around 125 per
year, going down to nearly a hundred each year in the recent decade. Thus, we
can put the figure at a maximum of around 1,000-1100 in each 10 years. This
would put the total number of films from 1948 to 1998 at between 5,000 to
5,500. And the average number of songs per film ranged from 10-12 in the 40's
to just about 4-6 in the late sixties, and even more recently. The total
number of songs can thus be estimated at about 40,000 in all. This includes
all male and female solos, choruses, duets, etc., etc.
It would, therefore, seem very highly unlikely that even Asha would reach the
number of 20,000 songs, even if we inlcuded songs of all other languages and
any and all songs recorded but never released.
It appears to me that the numbers stated in the Guiness Book is exaggerated.
Even back in the late seventies/early eighties, Lata was in the GB at about
25,000 songs, which we all know now was an incorrect number.
Could this be a case similar to what Kumar Sanu bragged a few years ago of
having recorded a whopping 28 songs in a single day which turned out to be a
medley of songs for a total of 28 mukhdas and stanzas, combined!!!! (This from
my recollections in various articles /interviews with Kumar Sanu, Abhijeet and
Udit Narain, in the Filmfare magazine in the early 90's.)
It seems to me that this should turn out to be a very interesting thread. What
say RMIMers.
Happy listenings.
Satish Kalra