5 Best Bollywood Musicals Of All  Times

Okay,  we all know songs have always been an  intrinsic part of Hindi cinema. Our  actors sing when they are happy, sing when they are sad…there’s a song for every occasion. But what about those films where the songs and music take the  story forward?  Here are the films where songs were  not a conceit  but  a necessity.

1. Abhimaan(1973): Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s film  about a  husband who won’t allow his more talented wife to go forward  in her life and career , was actually based on Kishore Kumar and  his first wife Ruma Guha Thakurta. How do I know? Because  Hrishida himself  told me.  Music in Abhimaan was the soul, and Lata Mangeshkar the  voice of  the film. Naturally! Hrishida adored Lataji. He  once  told she  never charged a  single penny for  songs in his  films. Jaya Bhaduri who  played  the singer-wife studied  Lataji’s  recordings and copied her style. Sachin Dev Burman’s songs Piya bina  piiya bina,  Ab toh hai tumse har khushi apni, Nadia  kinare hiraye aye kangana,  Tere mere Milan ki yeh raina  were  gems . This is a  musical  with perfect  music.
2. Anurodh(1976):  One of  the  less acknowledged  fruits  of  the famous  Rajesh  Khanna-Shakti Samanta collaborations, Anurodh had Khanna playing a singer. It featured some brilliant Laxmikant-Pyarelal compositions  sung by Kishore  Kumar  like Jab dard nahin ttha  seene mein,Aate  jate khubsoorat  awaara  sadkon  mein,  Aapke anurodh pe …Samanta and Khanna  always worked with composer R D Burman. They made an exception for this musical, an underrated  melodious marvel of  a movie.Rajesh Khanna  had a temporary fall-out with RD, hence the  musical replacement. But the  music did  not suffer in the  absence of Rajesh Khanna’s permanent muse.
3. Heer Ranjha(1970):  Chetan Anand’s legendary  love tale  was woven  around the  songs and  music written by the great Kaifi Azmi and composed by Madan Mohan. Every line that the  lovers Raj Kumar and Priya Rajvansh spoke was poetry penned  by Kaifi Saab.And  Madan Mohan  came up with the score  of his  lifetime: Milo na tum toh hum ghabraye, Do dil toote, Yeh duniya yeh mehfil,  Meri duniya mein tum aaye  and of course the  mother of all bidaai songs Doli chad de. Can’t get  any better than this.
4. Rock On(2008): A  game changer for Bollywood musicals. The  first Hindi  film about a rock band featuring Arjun Rampal,Purab Kohli,Luke Kenny and  Farhan Akhtar, The film gave us Farhan  the actor and the singer. The songs  composed  by  Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy were  functional in a very professional kind of way.This is the  kind of modern poetry(Javed Akhtar) that we expected these characters to sing.Farhan’s singing  voice provides  an interesting counterpoint to the velvety  playback singers who came  before.
5. Aashiqui  2(2013): The last ‘great’ Bollywood musical.Well okay,not so great a re-telling  of  the  Star Is Born tale  of  two singers who come  together  through their shared passion for music  and  fall apart  because of  it. Aditya  Roy Kapur and Shradha  Kapoor were passably impressive.But the film’s  intense intentions were manifested  in the songs composed by Mithoon, Jeet Ganguly and Amit Trivedi. Mithoon’s  Tum hi ho and  Amit Trivedi’s Sun raha hai stand  out.