Hindi Film Songs and the Cinema

'... this is a book that throws up several interesting new ways of appreciating the most immediately captivating of all musical styles ... it offers deep analytical anchors for further discussion of a vital and vivacious musical form that is only now beginning to make its astonishingly creative identity known to the wider world.' Songlines Magazine '... the book adds much to our understanding, especially of the industrial and aesthetic processes of song and film production.' Music, Sound and the Moving Image 'The research is grounded in ethnomusicology, but will have applicability to film studies, and the broader study of music and narrative. Morcom demonstrates the vulnerability of musical style to the overriding importance of 'situation' (the Mumbai film industry's term for narrative context) in Hindi cinema. This earns the volume a significant place in the literature. ...This research is primarily a picture of the Mumbai film industry in the 1990s. As such, its value is unquestionable.' Theatre and Performance '[This book] gave me an insight into on which premises ethnomusicology is established and it certainly taught me to be more sensitive to the various ways in which sound conveys meaning, which is possibly the biggest lesson of the book - to give a thought to the various sounds and their interplay with the visual [...] and their ways to express, convey and reproduce meaning.' antropologi.info/blog 'Anna Morcom's book adds much to the understanding of Hindi film songs, is an important addition to the study of Hindi cinema and is a pleasure to read.' Asian Ethnology '[An] important foundational study of the industrial and artistic processes of song and cinema production.' Ethnomusicology Forum