Music like Playback

A playback singer is a singer whose singing is pre-recorded for use in films. Playback singers record songs for soundtracks, and actors or actresses lip-sync the songs for cameras; the actual singer does not appear on the screen.

South Asian films produced in the Indian subcontinent are particularly known for using this technique. A majority of Indian films as well as Pakistani films typically include six or seven songs. After Alam Ara (1931), the first Indian talkie film, for many years singers made dual recordings for a film, one during the shoot, and later in the recording studio, until 1952 or 1953. Popular playback singers in India enjoy the same status as popular actors, and music directors, and they also receive wide public admiration. Most of the playback singers are initially trained in classical music, but they later often expand their range. Mohammed Rafi and Ahmed Rushdi are regarded as two of the most influential playback singers in South Asia. The sisters Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle, who have mainly worked in Hindi films, are often referred to as two of the best-known and prolific playback singers in India. In 2011, Guinness officially acknowledged Bhosle as the most recorded artist in music history.