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EYE ON BOLLYWOOD SEPTEMBER 12, 2025 | The Indian Eye 37

Bollywood’s Broken Notes: Between

Missing Voices and AI-Made Echoes

As playback legend Shaan warns, Bollywood music today faces a double crisis—singers struggling to find

original voices and artificial intelligence threatening to erase the authenticity of those who came before.

OUR BUREAU strips all that away, reducing artistry
to data. Second, the audience—espe-
Mumbai
cially younger listeners—risks confus-
ollywood music, once a space ing imitations with originals, blurring
of unending innovation and the lines between homage and coun-
Bcultural resonance, finds itself terfeit.
at a crossroads. On one side is the This crisis comes at a time when
shrinking pool of original voices— the Bollywood music industry is al-
singers who can carry a distinct style ready facing criticism for over-re-
and leave a timeless imprint. On the liance on remixes and formulaic
other side is the dizzying rise of arti- soundtracks. With AI adding another
ficial intelligence, which can mimic layer of duplication, the industry’s cre-
legends but risks reducing art to imi- ative bandwidth looks even narrower.
tation. Together, these two forces are Instead of investing in new voices and
reshaping the soundscape of India’s encouraging experimentation, there
most influential industry. is a temptation to lean on nostalgia—
Playback singer Shaan, who has whether through endless remakes of
spent nearly three decades in the 90s hits or through digital recreations
industry, is among the few voices of singers who are no longer alive.
sounding the alarm. Known for unfor- Yet, the solution, Shaan insists,
gettable tracks like Chand Sifarish and lies not in technology but in educa-
Behti Hawa Sa Tha Voh, Shaan has tion. “There has to be a different
seen the golden years of Bollywood schooling,” he says. Artists need plat-
playback evolve into today’s digitally forms where they are taught not just
driven, algorithm-heavy music scene. to sing well but to sing themselves.
His assessment is blunt: reality shows, A Kishore Kumar song sung by Kishore himself carries the weight of his era, his life, and his Original compositions, fresh lyrics,
which once promised to nurture raw and daring experiments must be cele-
talent, have become entertainment creative choices. An AI-generated cover strips all that away, reducing artistry to data brated as much as technical brilliance.
spectacles, producing singers who ex- Only then can the industry hope to
cel at imitation but rarely at originality. own music. The result, Shaan warns, is legendary singers. With a few clicks, produce voices that last beyond one
“Technically, they are all fantas- a generation of singers who are tech- Kishore Kumar can be made to croon viral moment.
tic,” Shaan admits, “but they haven’t nically polished but creatively stunted. Saiyaara or Mohammed Rafi can be in- Ironically, Shaan himself con-
found their own voice. They are sing- And just as this shortage of orig- serted into a 21st-century EDM track. tinues to look backward even as
ing Sonu Nigam’s songs like Sonu inality has begun to pinch Bollywood, The danger is twofold. For one, he pleads for originality. Later this
Nigam, Arijit Singh’s songs like Ar- another storm has arrived: artificial the sanctity of the original work is month, he will dedicate an entire con-
ijit Singh. Where is their style, their intelligence. The same technology that compromised. A Kishore Kumar song cert to Kishore Kumar, a singer who
USP?” His words reflect a deeper cri- powers voice assistants and deepfakes sung by Kishore himself carries the remains unmatched in versatility and
sis in the industry—an inability to nur- has now entered music, allowing us- weight of his era, his life, and his cre- charm. The show, Forever Kishore
ture individuality. For decades, Bolly- ers to generate covers in the voices of ative choices. An AI-generated cover Shaan Se, is less about replication and
wood produced stars whose voices more about reverence—a reminder
defined eras: Kishore Kumar in the BOLLYWOOD MUSIC IN NUMBERS that tributes need not erase original-
70s, Kumar Sanu and Udit Narayan ity. Shaan’s renditions will be his own,
in the 90s, Sonu Nigam and Shaan • 70% of Bollywood hits in 2022 were remixes or rehashed versions of filtered through his journey, rather
himself in the 2000s, and Arijit Singh older songs than borrowed through AI.
in the 2010s. But in today’s crowded Bollywood music has always
musical marketplace, fresh voices are • 3 out of 5 winners of reality singing shows in the past decade have mirrored India’s cultural heartbeat.
struggled to sustain playback careers
struggling to cut through the noise. From the soul-stirring ghazals of Ta-
The reason is partly structural. • AI voice cloning apps in India saw a 200% rise in downloads in 2023 lat Mahmood to the disco frenzy of
Television singing competitions, once Bappi Lahiri, from A.R. Rahman’s
considered stepping stones to play- • Arijit Singh remains the dominant voice in Bollywood—he featured Oscar-winning fusion to Arijit Singh’s
back careers, now focus more on spec- in more than 45% of top 100 streamed Hindi film songs in 2021–23. melancholic ballads, the industry has
tacle than substance. Contestants belt thrived on reinvention. The current
out pitch-perfect covers, often win- • Independent music on platforms like YouTube and Spotify grew 25% crisis—of missing originality and ar-
ning applause for reproducing classics year-on-year, suggesting audiences are open to new voices outside the tificial imitation—poses perhaps its
Bollywood system.
rather than experimenting with their toughest challenge yet.

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