Brought to Life by the Voice: Playback Singing and Cultural Politics in South India by Amanda Weidman (review)

The global musical community has long been aware of the culturally and commercially significant practice of playback singing in Bollywood films and the distinctive position of female singers within this industry, as long represented by the iconic Lata Mangeshkar (1929– 2022).1 The vast majority of studies have focused on the industry out of Mumbai and the music of Hindilanguage film, acknowledging in the margins that major industries exist for many of India’s languages. In recent years regional film industries have risen in prominence, with Financial Express, a respected daily newspaper distributed across India, reporting that in 2019 regional films, led by Telugu and Tamil cinema in the South, contributed a larger share of box office revenues to the overall industry than Bollywood.2 The change has been fueled by the last decade’s growth of what have been called “panIndian” films, mostly South Indian films simultaneously released in more than five languages.3 Struck by the paucity of scholarly examinations of Indian film culture, especially given the flourishing Indian film industry, and with interests in women’s reallife musical experience and film, music, and culture of South India, I was happy to discover Amanda Weidman’s new book Brought to Life by the Voice: Playback Singing and Cultural Politics in South India.