A playback singer is a singer whose singing is prerecorded for use in movies. Playback singers record songs for soundtrack

Soundtrack

A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...

s, and actors or actresses lip-sync the songs for cameras, while the actual singer does not appear on screen.

South Asia

South Asian movies

South Asian cinema

South Asian cinema refers to the cinema of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives.The terms Asian cinema, Eastern cinema and Oriental cinema in common usage often encompass South Asia as well as East Asia and South East Asia...

 produced in the Indian subcontinent

Indian subcontinent

The Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent, Indo-Pak Subcontinent or South Asian Subcontinent is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate from the Hindu Kush or Hindu Koh, Himalayas and including the Kuen Lun and Karakoram ranges, forming a land mass which extends...

 are particularly known for using this technique. A majority of Indian movies

Cinema of India

The cinema of India consists of films produced across India, which includes the cinematic culture of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Orissa, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal. Indian films came to be followed throughout South Asia and...

 (particularly Bollywood

Bollywood

Bollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai , Maharashtra, India. The term is often incorrectly used to refer to the whole of Indian cinema; it is only a part of the total Indian film industry, which includes other production centers producing...

 and other regional films) as well as Pakistani movies

Cinema of Pakistan

The cinema of Pakistan refers to Pakistan's film industry. Most of the feature films shot in Pakistan are in Urdu language but may also include films in English, Punjabi, Pashto, Balochi or Sindhi languages....

, typically include six or seven songs. Popular playback singers in India enjoy the same status as popular actors, and music directors, such as Rahul Dev Burman

Rahul Dev Burman

Rahul Dev Burman commonly known as R. D. Burman and nicknamed Pancham da or simply Pancham, was an influential Bollywood music composer. He was the only son of singer and Bollywood music composer Sachin Dev Burman and his wife Meera...

 (1939–1994) and A. R. Rahman

A. R. Rahman

Allah Rakha Rahman is an Indian composer, singer-songwriter, record producer, musician, and philanthropist. Described as the world's most prominent and prolific film composer by Time, his works are notable for integrating eastern classical music with electronic music sounds, world music genres and...

, also receive wide public admiration.

Most of the playback singers are initially trained in classical music, though they later often expand their range. The sisters Lata Mangeshkar

Lata Mangeshkar

Lata Mangeshkar is a singer from India. She is one of the best-known and most respected playback singers in India. Mangeshkar's career started in 1942 and has spanned over six and a half decades. She has recorded songs for over a thousand Hindi films and has sung songs in over thirty-six regional...

 and Asha Bhosle

Asha Bhosle

Asha Bhosle is an Indian singer. She is one of the best-known and most highly-regarded Hindi playback singers in India, although she has a wider repertoire. Bhosle's career started in 1943 and has spanned over six decades. She has done playback singing for over a thousand Bollywood movies...

, who have mainly worked in Hindi films, are often referred to as two of the best-known and most prolific playback singers in India. In 1991, Mangeshkar was cited by the Guinness Book of World Records for having sung more than 30,000 solo, duet and chorus-backed song recordings, more than any other singer in the world. In 2011, Guinness officially acknowledged Asha Bhosle as the most recorded artist in music history, surpassing Mangeshkar.

Other popular singers include but are not limited to: Dr. Bhupen Hazarika

Bhupen Hazarika

Bhupen Hazarika was an Indian lyricist, musician, singer, poet and film-maker from Assam. His songs,written and sung mainly in Assamese by the legend himself, are infused with humanity and universalism, and have been translated and sung in many languages, most notable being Bengali ,Hindi and...

, Mohammed Rafi

Mohammed Rafi

Mohammad Rafi , was an Indian playback singer whose career spanned four decades. He was awarded National Award and 6 Filmfare Awards. In 1967, he was honoured with the Padma Shri awarded by the Government of India....

, Mukesh, Manna Dey

Manna Dey

Prabodh Chandra Dey , better known by his nickname Manna Dey , is a playback singer in Bengali Assamese and Hindi films. Along with Mohammed Rafi, Kishore Kumar, Mukesh, he was a part of Indian film playback music from the 1950s to the 1970s. He has recorded more than 3500 songs over the course of...

, K. J. Yesudas

K. J. Yesudas

Kattassery Joseph Yesudas is an Indian classical musician and playback singer.Yesudas sings Indian classical, devotional, and popular music. He has recorded more than 50,000 songs in many languages including Malayalam, Tamil, Hindi, Kannada, Telugu, Bengali, Gujarati, Oriya, Marathi, Punjabi,...

, P Jayachandran

Jayachandran

Paliyath Jayachandran, popularly known as P. Jayachandran is an Indian playback singer. He has won one National Award, four Kerala State Awards and four Tamil Nadu State Awards. He has recorded songs in Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu and Hindi languages...

, Kishore Kumar

Kishore Kumar

Kishore Kumar , born Abhas Kumar Ganguly, was an Indian film playback singer and an actor who also worked as lyricist, composer, producer, director, screenwriter and scriptwriter.Kishore Kumar was one of India's greatest performers of the late 20th century...

, Geeta Dutt

Geeta Dutt

Geetā Dutt was a prominent singer in India. She found particular prominence as a playback singer in Hindi cinema...

, Anuradha Paudwal

Anuradha Paudwal

Anuradha Paudwal is a popular playback singer in Bollywood in India.She has sung songs in Hindi, Marathi and Nepali.- Biography :She studied at Xavier's College in Mumbai. She was married to the late Arun Paudwal, who worked with music director S. D. Burman as his assistant...

, S.P. Balasubramaniam, K. S. Chitra, P. Susheela

P. Susheela

Pulapaka Susheela is an Indian playback singer. In a career spanning more than four decades, she has recorded songs in many Indian languages including Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Hindi, Bengali, Oriya, Sanskrit, Tulu, Badaga and Sinhalese.-Personal life:She is the daughter of Pulapaka...

, S. Janaki

S. Janaki

S. Janaki is an Indian female playback singer. Renowned for her voice modulation abilities, she has sung in many Indian languages, most frequently in Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, and Hindi. Throughout a career spanning more than five decades, she has won four National Film Awards and 35...

, Swarnalatha

Swarnalatha

Swarnalatha was a Indian playback singer. From 1987 onward, she rendered nearly 7000 songs in many languages including Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Hindi, Malayalam, Urdu, Bengali, Oriya, Punjabi and Badaga....

, Alka Yagnik

Alka Yagnik

Alka Yagnik is an Indian singer who is ranked among the best Hindi playback singers of all time. She is a seven-time winner of the Filmfare Best Female Playback Award as well as a two-time recipient of the prestigious National Film Awards...

, Kavita Krishnamurthy, Udit Narayan

Udit Narayan

-Career:King of melody, Udit Narayan Jha was born on 1 December, 1955 in a village called Bhardaha in the Saptari district , Nepal. His father was Hare Krishna Jha and his mother was Bhuwaneshwari Devi.Narayan studied at P.B...

, Kumar Sanu

Kumar Sanu

Kumar Sanu Kumar Sanu Kumar Sanu (alias Kedarnath Bhattacharya , born in Kolkata, is a leading Indian Bollywood playback singer. He was awarded the Filmfare Best Male Playback Award over five consecutive years. The Government of India honoured him with the Padma Shri in 2009....

, Sonu Nigam

Sonu Nigam

Sonu Nigam is an Indian playback singer whose songs have been featured in numerous Hindi movies, as well as films in Assamese, Punjabi, Bengali, Marathi and Kannada language. He has also released numerous Indi-pop albums and acted in a few Hindi feature films...

, Shreya Ghoshal and Sunidhi Chauhan

Sunidhi Chauhan

Sunidhi Chauhan is an Indian playback singer, best known for her Hindi film songs in Bollywood. She has also recorded songs for Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Bengali, Assamese and Gujarati films and is credited with over 2000 songs....

.

Famous Pakistani playback singers include Ahmed Rushdi

Ahmed Rushdi

Ahmed Rushdi, SI, PP was a versatile Pakistani playback singer who worked in film music and was "an important contributor to the Golden Age of Pakistani film music." Rushdi is acclaimed as one of the greatest singers ever lived in south asia and was a natural baritone, yet could sing high tenor...

, Mehdi Hassan

Mehdi Hassan

Mehdi Hassan is a Pakistani ghazal singer and a former playback singer for Lollywood. He is famously known as the 'King of ghazal' . He has ruled the Pakistan film industry along with Ahmed Rushdi...

, Masood Rana

Masood Rana

Masood Rana was a Pakistani playback singer. He began his singing career in 1962 with the film Inqalab and became one of the top male singers in both Urdu and Punjabi films for more than three decades...

, Adnan Sami Khan, Noor Jehan

Noor Jehan

Noorjehan or Noorjehan was the adopted stage name for Allah Wasai who was a legendary singer and actress in British India and Pakistan. Her career spanned seven decades...

, Mala

Mala (Pakistani singer)

Naseem Nazli popularly called Mala was a Pakistani playback singer of Urdu and Punjabi films. In 1960s, Mala had a hit pair with famous playback singer Ahmed Rushdi and they gave numorous hits to Pakistan film industry. She sung many super hit songs in almost two decades singing career in the...

 and Runa Laila

Runa Laila

Runa Laila is a singer of the Indian subcontinent who is from Bangladesh. She started her career from Pakistan film industry and is effective in Ghazals also. She made a hit pair with famous singer Ahmed Rushdi after replacing Mala. She also has done numerous playbacks for movies in Bangladesh,...

.

Songs in Bollywood movies - the combined products of the talents of lyricists, music directors/composers, and singers - often determine the extent of success of individual Indian movies; as such, playback singers are an important part of the Indian film industry. Soundtrack

Soundtrack

A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...

 albums of songs in movies are usually released before the movies.

Hollywood

Playback singing is not as common in Hollywood given the fact that musicals are not as frequent. It was, however, more widely used in the past. Notable Hollywood

Cinema of the United States

The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...

 performances include Bill Lee

Bill Lee (singer)

Bill Lee was an American playback singer who provided a voice or singing voice in many films, for actors in musicals and for many Disney characters. He was born in Johnson, Nebraska and died in 1980 in Los Angeles, California, of a brain tumor.Lee was part of a popular singing quartet known as The...

 voicing the Christopher Plummer

Christopher Plummer

Arthur Christopher Orne Plummer, CC is a Canadian theatre, film and television actor. He made his film debut in 1957's Stage Struck, and notable early film performances include Night of the Generals, The Return of the Pink Panther and The Man Who Would Be King.In a career that spans over five...

 character in The Sound of Music

The Sound of Music (film)

Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music is a 1965 American musical film directed by Robert Wise and starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer. The film is based on the Broadway musical The Sound of Music, with songs written by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, and with the musical...

,, Lindsay Ridgeway

Lindsay Ridgeway

Lindsay Elizabeth Ridgeway is a former American child actress in film, television, and theater. She is a voice actor in several animated shows like Totally Spies! and plays the character Britney....

 for Ashley Peldon

Ashley Peldon

Ashley Peldon is an American television and film actress.-Early life and career:Peldon was born in New York City, New York. Along with her sister Courtney, she worked as a child actor....

's character as Darla Dimple in the animated film Cats Don't Dance

Cats Don't Dance

Cats Don't Dance is a 1997 animated musical comedy film, notable as the only fully animated feature produced by Turner Entertainment's feature animation unit . The film was distributed by Warner Bros. Family Entertainment...

, and Betty Noyes

Betty Noyes

Elizabeth "Betty" Noyes Hand was a singer and actress best known for dubbing the singing voice of Debbie Reynolds in the film Singin' in the Rain. Today, this is a well known example of dubbing in a movie musical due to the irony of the fact that Debbie Reynolds' character in Singin' in the Rain...

 singing for Debbie Reynolds

Debbie Reynolds

Debbie Reynolds is an American actress, singer, and dancer.She was initially signed at age 16 by Warner Bros., but her career got off to a slow start. When her contract was not renewed, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer gave her a small, but significant part in the film Three Little Words , then signed her to...

 in Singin' in the Rain

Singin' in the Rain

Singin' in the Rain is a 1952 American comedy musical film starring Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor and Debbie Reynolds and directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, with Kelly also providing the choreography...

, a movie in which playback singing is a major plot point.

See also

• List of Indian playback singers
• List of Pakistani film singers
• Lip-synching in music
  Lip-synching in music
  Lip-synching in music is "moving the lips in synchronization with [pre-]recorded speech or song" to give the appearance of a 'live' performance. It is generally considered dishonest, though some producers argue that it needs to be done in some performance contexts...
  
  
• Dubbing
  Dubbing (filmmaking)
  Dubbing is the post-production process of recording and replacing voices on a motion picture or television soundtrack subsequent to the original shooting. The term most commonly refers to the substitution of the voices of the actors shown on the screen by those of different performers, who may be...
  
  , also known as looping or post-sync.