The Playback Queen: the Very Best of Asha Bhosle

Aptly titled The Playback Queen, this compilation captures four decades of Asha Bhosle's extensive repertoire – up to the 1990s – from the world of Hindi cinema, now popularly known as Bollywood. It demonstrates that Asha, whose career parallels the rise of Indian cinema in the post¬war era, was equally at home interpreting lyrical ghazals, folk songs – India's attempts at mimicking cabaret–style swing and elements of rock'n'roll from the West – as she was at songs with a strong classical foundation.

Seductive Asha, the first disc, features many well–known upbeat, toe–tapping, swinging songs influenced by a smorgasbord of styles beyond India. Many are littered with references to melodies and riffs from jazz, Latin and even Far Eastern music. They include the playful ‘Eena Meena Deeka;’ the hippie anthem ‘Dum Maro Dum;’ and the delightfully tuneful ‘Chura Liya Hai Tum Ne’. The songs capture the essence of the movie's characters – often the film's bad girls or vamps. Classical Asha, the second CD, is more slow–paced, traditional, and devotional. It uses folksy bhangra rhythms years before they became fashionable: duets and ballads and sounds of sitar. They present a sublimely beautiful voice that is often overlooked by those familiar with the popular side of Asha's more catchy songs.

Bolstered by extensive liner notes by Jameela Siddiqi, this is pure listening pleasure from undoubtedly one of Indian cinema's greatest playback singers. For a novice, it is a great introduction. For those more familiar with Indian cinema before it became the Bollywood film industry that it is today, it is a trip down memory lane.