India’s response to the global phenomenon of “youth” music and culture was initially and most clearly apparent in its commercial cinema; beginning with the “re-invention” of Hindi film actor Shammi Kapoor as a teenage idol in 1957. The majority of the Indian urban and rural audience was broadly assumed to be non-English-speaking and generally unfamiliar with foreign culture (which was largely unavailable outside India’s major cities, especially after 1952). This talk examines musical manifestations of “youth culture” in India and considers the stylistic, linguistic, and ultimately ideological distinctions that initially separated English-language urban youth music from Hindi-language Bollywood music.

GREGORY D. BOOTH is an Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Auckland. He is the author of two books, Behind the Curtain: Making Music in Mumbai’s Film Studios (OUP 2008) and Brass Baja: Stories from the World of Indian Wedding Bands (OUP 2005), and numerous articles on music, film, industry and culture in South Asia. His research engages with numerous classical, film and popular musicians as well as music and film industry figures. He is currently studying aspects of India’s music and film culture-industries, focusing on a wide range of factors including intellectual property, technology, industrial structures, and the music-film nexus.