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Cities are a major topic for popular songs. [1] [2] Music journalist and author Nick Coleman has gone as far as to say that apart from love, "pop is better on cities than anything else." [1]
Popular music often treats cities positively, though sometimes they are portrayed as places of danger and temptation. In many cases, songs celebrate individual cities, presenting them as exciting and liberating. Not all genres share the tendency to be positive about cities; in Country music cities are often portrayed as unfriendly and dehumanizing, or seductive but full of sin. [1] [2] However, there are many exceptions, for example: Lady Antebellum's song "This City" and Danielle Bradbery's "Young in America",.
Lyricist and author Sheila Davis writes that including a city in a song's title helps focus the song on the concrete and specific, which is both more appealing and more likely to lead to universal truth than abstract generalizations. Davis also says that songs with titles concerning cities and other specific places often have enduring popularity. [3]
The following is a list of songs about cities, from both traditional and pop music: the list should not be considered complete.
"The Unicorn Invasion of Dundee" by Gloryhammer
Memphis holds the distinction of being the most mentioned city in the world when it comes to commercially recorded songs.[ citation needed ] As of July 2013, this list has made it up to 1074 songs and counting. The list is maintained at the Memphis Rock and Soul Museum website. The ones listed below are some of the better-known songs:
Asha Bhosle is an Indian playback singer, entrepreneur, actress and television personality who predominantly works in Indian cinema. Known for her versatility, she has been described in the media as one of the greatest and most influential singers in Hindi cinema. In her career spanning over eight decades she has recorded songs for films and albums in various Indian languages and received several accolades including two National Film Awards, four BFJA Awards, eighteen Maharashtra State Film Awards, nine Filmfare Awards including a Lifetime Achievement Award and a record seven Filmfare Awards for Best Female Playback Singer, in addition to two Grammy nominations. In 2000, she was honoured with the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, India's highest award in the field of cinema. In 2008, she was honoured by the Government of India with the Padma Vibhushan, the second-highest civilian honour of the country. The Guinness Book of World Records acknowledged Bhosle in 2011 as the most recorded artist in music history.
Mohammed Rafi was an Indian playback singer. He is considered to have been one of the greatest and most influential singers of the Indian subcontinent. Rafi was notable for his versatility and range of voice; his songs varied from fast peppy numbers to patriotic songs, sad numbers to highly romantic songs, qawwalis to ghazals and bhajans to classical songs. He was known for his ability to mould his voice to the persona and style of the actor lip-syncing the song on screen in the movie. He received six Filmfare Awards and one National Film Award. In 1967, he was honored with the Padma Shri award by the Government of India. In 2001, Rafi was honoured with the "Best Singer of the Millennium" title by Hero Honda and Stardust magazine. In 2013, Rafi was voted for the Greatest Voice in Hindi Cinema in the CNN-IBN's poll.
Laxmikant–Pyarelal were an Indian composer duo, consisting of Laxmikant Shantaram Kudalkar (1937–1998) and Pyarelal Ramprasad Sharma . They composed music for about 750 Hindi movies from 1963 to 1998, working for almost all notable filmmakers, including Raj Kapoor, Dev Anand, Shakti Samanta, Manmohan Desai, Yash Chopra, K. Balanchander, Boney Kapoor, J. Om Prakash, Raj Khosla, L. V. Prasad, Subhash Ghai, Mahesh Bhatt, K. Viswanath and Manoj Kumar.
Seema is a 1971 Hindi film directed by Surendra Mohan. Though this film was not a big commercial success, it is renowned for its lilting musical score by the duo of Shankar Jaikishan and is especially remembered for a very famous song by Tamil singer Sharda Rajan Iyengar with Mohammad Rafi; "Jab Bhi Yeh Dil Udaas Hota Hai", which was penned by Gulzar.
Ab Dilli Dur Nahin is a 1957 Indian Hindi-language film directed by Amar Kumar and written by Rajinder Singh Bedi and Muhafiz Hyder. The film was produced by Raj Kapoor and starred Yakub, Anwar Hussain, Motilal, Jagdeep and Amjad Khan.
Ganga Ki Lahren is a 1964 Hindi drama film produced and directed by Devi Sharma. The film stars Kishore Kumar, Dharmendra, Savitri, Aruna Irani, Rehman and Asit Sen. The music of the film is by Chitragupt, with lyrics by Majrooh Sultanpuri, featuring songs like "Ganga Ki Lahren".
Memsaab is a 1971 Bollywood drama film directed by Atma Ram. The film stars Vinod Khanna and Yogeeta Bali.
Do Bachche Dus Haath is a 1972 Bollywood drama film directed by Kalpataru Nasir. The film stars Ahmad Ansari and Prem Nath.
Khoon Khoon is a 1973 Bollywood action thriller film directed by Mohammed Hussain and stars Mahendra Sandhu, Danny Denzongpa and Rekha in lead roles. The film is the remake of the Clint Eastwood thriller Dirty Harry.
Angaaray is a 1975 Bollywood film directed by Govind Saraiya. It stars Sanjeev Kumar & Raakhee in lead roles.
Do Chehere is a 1977 Bollywood drama film directed by Kewal Misra produced by Ratan Kumar Purohit. The film stars Dharmendra, Prem Nath and Bindu.
Pandit Aur Pathan is a 1977 Indian Hindi-language action film directed by Joginder Shelly.
Nartakee (Dancer) is a 1963 Indian social film directed by Nitin Bose. The story and screenplay were written by Dhruv Chatterji, with dialogues by S. K. Prabhakar. Produced by Mukund Trivedi for Film Bharti, its director of photography was Nana Ponkshe. Director Bimal Roy did the editing for the film. Choreography was by Sohanlal, assisted by choreographer Saroj. The music director was Ravi and the lyricist was Shakeel Badayuni. The film starred Sunil Dutt and Nanda in key roles with Om Prakash, Agha, Zeb Rehman, Pritibala and Aruna Irani.
The following is a select filmography of films for which Rahul Dev Burman, also known as R. D. Burman, composed the soundtracks. He was one of the most prolific Indian movie score/soundtrack composers of the Indian film industry:
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