Indian pop

Indian pop music (Hindi: हिन्दुस्तानी पॉप संगीत), often known as Indian-Pop, Hindi Pop, Indipop or Indi-pop, refers to pop music in India. Pop music really started in the South Asian region with the playback singer Ahmed Rushdi's song ‘Ko Ko Korina’ in 1966 and has since then been adopted in Bangladesh, India and lately Nepal as a pioneering influence in their respective pop cultures. Following Rushdi's success, Christian bands specialising in jazz started performing at various night clubs and hotel lobbies in Karachi, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Dhaka and Lahore. They would usually sing either famous American jazz hits or cover Rushdi's songs. The term refers to non-soundtrack music in contrast to filmi music i.e soundtrack music, the latter of which almost completely dominates Indian music.

Origins

The term Indipop was first used by the British-Indian fusion band Monsoon in their 1981 EP release on Steve Coe's Indipop Records. Pop music began gaining popularity across the Indian subcontinent with Pakistani singers Nazia Hassan and Zohaib, forming a sibling duo whose records, produced by the Indian Biddu, sold as many as 60 million copies.