Honest Fakery: Playback Singing in "Ainvayi Ainvayi"

I remember when the biggest scandal in American music was the Milli Vanilli lip-synching controversy. For those of you too young to remember, Milli Vanilli was a pop and R&B group in the late 1980s and early 1990s who won a Grammy for their first album only to be outed as frauds when a Los Angeles Times journalist reported that the voices on the album weren't those of band members Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus, but different singers. The Grammy was withdrawn and Milli Vanilli faded into obscurity.

I once had an argument with a German friend of mine in the early 1990s. She told me that Robin Williams was her favorite actor at the time. She cited his humor and acting skills. However, I learned that American movies in Germany were usually dubbed into German. Specific voice actors would be attached to an American star, so that Robin Williams voice was always dubbed by the same German voice actor. I asked my friend if Robin Williams was her favorite actor, or the German voice actor who dubbed him. She insisted that it was Robin Williams. "But how do you know?" I asked. She continued to insist that it was Robin Williams she liked, even as she admitted his voice was dubbed by someone else.

Indian movies often bring me back to this argument, because lip-synching is common. It is rare in Indian movies for the stars to sing their own songs. A whole industry has risen around the need to dub actors in Bollywood movies...that of the playback singer. A playback singer is a singer that dubs for Indian actors in song and dance numbers, and many playback singers have become stars in their own right. One of the most famous playback singers is Asha Bhosle - a song paying homage to her, A Brimful of Asha, became Fatboy Slim's breakout hit.

Of course, one might argue that in today's pop climate of auto-tuning, where a person with marginal singing skills can become a star thanks to digital manipulation, and where lip-synching is common in pop concerts, who really cares if one's voice might not be one's own. What I like about the Indian take is that it is upfront and acknowledged. There is no attempt to deceive. But if I listen to the landscape of American pop, I always have to wonder if that is truly the voice of the person I hear singing, or an electronically manipulated facsimile.

Today's song is joyfully, gleefully the product of playback singing. Ainvayi Ainvayi is a song and dance number from the 2010 Bollywood movie Band Baaja Baaraat (translation: Bands, Horns and Revelry). It is a romantic comedy about a woman who dreams of being a wedding planner, and a man who dreams of her and who goes into wedding planning to be near her. The film stars Anushka Sharma as the female lead, and Ranveer Singh, who had no prior acting or movie experience, as the male lead. The playback singing on this number is performed by Salim Merchant and Sunidhi Chauhan. The film garnered many positive reviews and awards, and did very well at the box office. The song is a fast paced and uptempo dance number, with some rock flourishes, and a lot of energy by both playback singers and stars.