The forgotten art of playback singing

Ever heard songs of recent flicks lately? Well I'm sure you would have coz they're all over TV until the film releases and a week after.
Remember any of them two weeks later?
IF AT ALL you do, can you differentiate between two or more songs?
Again, IF AT ALL you do, do you think you'll still remember which song belonged to which movie after, say 2 years (then again, this is if you remember the movie name by then too!)?

Nowadays, all songs sound similar, don't they? Watching the videos of these songs gives you a bigger headache than listening to them!

Gone are the good old days when songs would be refreshing, original, having an Indian feel, soothing, beautiful ... gone are the days where songs fitted the situation to a T in the film scenario ... gone are the days where a LOT of effort went into the lyrics and picturization of the songs once the music was composed - and those videos too would be different and original in each song, in each film. EXTREMELY creative at times, I must say!

While there are many aspects in a song, let's talk about playback singing, shall we?

Now, a playback singer is supposed to sing the song while the artiste lip-syncs to it. Correct? So what are the essential skills one would need to become a playback singer?
He/she should be a very good singer - obviously.
He/she should be able to get into the mood of the song, feel the situation and convey it through singing while the artiste has all the liberty to enact it - tough, but necessary.
Any other you can think of?

Since the playback singer represents the voice of the actor, how about the ability to modify your voice to suit the actor / actress you're going to be singing for? I would say a BIG YES!!!

So let me ask you something now - how long has it been since you heard a good PLAYBACK singer entering the Hindi film industry? You have probably heard a few singers here and there (pretty average ones too!) like Atif Aslam and Himesh Reshammiya who sing as if it's their private album and not a film!
This is where playback singing has taken a back seat. Why, you need to go back only so far as the 90s to find that transition happening. While Udit Narayan, Shaan, Sonu Nigam and Abhijeet could still sound like the actor they 'represented' (Aamir Khan, Saif Ali Khan, Shahrukh Khan twice, respectively), another very famous singer (and a pretty good one too!) - Kumar Sanu sounded like Kumar Sanu all the time. Point number 3 in our list was slowly dying, more so because people still believed good 'playback' singing existed then.

But go back from when music in Hindi cinema began, till say, the 80s and early 90s. Each playback singer of those times would totally devote themselves to the song, and the artiste they represented. There are of course various tales of how Kishore Kumar researched Rajesh Khanna's voice before singing for him in Aradhana. Lata Mangeshkar did the same for Padmini Kolhapuri in Satyam Shivam Sundaram, Mohd. Rafi and Shammi Kapoor practised all their songs and dances together; and I'm sure there must be several other cases as well. The results are out there for all to see.

Even now, we only have to listen to these old songs on radio, sure we can figure out who the singer of that song is; they all had distinct voices then; but also, almost instantly, we can imagine which artiste the song is picturized on. Isn't that speaking a lot about the talent the singers of those times' possessed?

While Mohammed Rafi could be Dev Anand, Shammi Kapoor, Joy Mukherjee, Raj Kumar, Rajesh Khanna, Dharmendra, Jeetendra, Guru Dutt, Dilip Kumar, Rajendra Kumar, Manoj Kumar, he could also be someone so different ... like Johny Walker!
Kishore Kumar was at once Dev Anand, Rajesh Khanna, Sanjeev Kumar, Amitabh Bachchan, Shashi Kapoor, Rishi Kapoor and not to forget, he was sometimes also Kishore Kumar :)
Note the similarities in the two lists - any one actor could be represented by different playback singers depending on the situation. Hats off to the brilliant music directors of those times who never stereotyped any artise with one particular singer!
There were plenty of other singers, like Manna Dey, Mahendra Kapoor , Talat Mahmood and Mukesh who were very adaptible to the actor the song would be shot on.

Female playback singers like Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhonsle could sound exactly like Waheeda Rehman, Asha Parekh, Vyjanthimala, Saira Banu, Hema Malini, Sharmila Tagore, Jaya Bhaduri, Rekha, Mumtaz, Zeenat Aman, Helen, Nutan, Meena Kumari, Madhubala, Sadhana, Parveen Babi, Poonam Dhillon, Padmini Kolhapure and all the other leading ladies of their times. Geeta Dutt and Shamshad Begum very well represented the heroines of the early and mid 50s, like Madhubala, Meena Kumari (note the repetition of their names), Geeta Bali, Shakiela and Kalpana Karthik.

And mind you, they were no average singers. The pitches and variations they would handle (at a modified voice to suit the actor/actress) was something we can hardlly imagine.
That was REAL playback singing, wasn't it? The ability to at once identify the artiste on whom it is picturized while at the same time, identifying the singer of the song, created timeless gems.
Don't you think this art has somewhere got lost in today's times?
Don't you miss it?
Would you still call today's singers 'playback' singers?