Despite the release of musicals like Amar Singh Chamkila , Lootera, and Qala in recent years, one may argue that the era of Hindi films with over a dozen songs is in the past. As recently as the 90s and early 2000s, many Indian films had 10 or more songs, with Hum Aapke Hain Koun and Taal both exceeding a dozen each. But neither of them can hold a candle to this 1932 release, one of the first talkies from India that had a staggering 72 songs.
( Also read: Bollywood's most successful actor has 74 hits, more than Shah Rukh, Salman Khan, Amitabh, yet was never called superstar ) The film with the most songs Indrasabha, a 1932 film that heralded the era of musicals in Indian cinema, had 72 songs. Some sources say that the tracks' number was 69, while others put it at 71 due to the presence of different versions of one song in the film. The Guinness Book of World Records recognised it as the film with the most songs in 1980.
The film was released just a year after Alam Ara, the first Indian film with sound, and is largely considered instrumental in popularising the concept of songs and dances in Indian films. Directed by Manilal Joshi, Indrasabha was a mammoth film, 211 minutes long, largely because of the many musical interludes. Based on Inder Sabha, an Urdu play written by Agha Hasan Amanat, Indrasabha followed the play's tradition of using music to introduce characters.
In The Cambridge Guide to Asian Theatre, James R Brandon wrote that the play included "31 ghazals, 9 thumri .
