Patna: Bollywood’s love for retro music shows no sign of slowing, with Dhurandhar 2: The Revenge setting streaming records even before its release on March 19. The film, starring Ranveer Singh, continues the trend of integrating 1990s music, while expanding into Punjabi hits, capturing both nostalgia and modern tastes. Fans are eagerly exploring every detail of the sequel, which follows the musical blueprint of the first Dhurandhar.
The film’s first song, “Aari Aari”, has already gone viral, amassing over 100 million streams within two days and ranking fifth on YouTube charts. The track is a remix of the 2003 song by the Indo-Danish band Bombay Rockers, demonstrating Bollywood’s ongoing trend of reviving classic hits for contemporary audiences.
According to Spotify data, younger listeners, particularly Gen Z aged 18–24, are increasingly tuning into Hindi songs from the 1950s and 1960s. This has encouraged filmmakers to recreate iconic tracks, and in Dhurandhar 2, five out of 11 songs are retro remixes. Notably, all 11 songs from the film’s album entered Spotify’s Global Top 200 chart, a first for any Bollywood release.
Popular tracks from the film include the Punjabi title track “Jogi” (121 million views), “Teer Te Taj” from Kesari Chapter 2 (93 million views), and remixes of Sonu Nigam’s 1999 hit “Bijuria” (94 million views). Other reimagined classics include “Chor Bazaar” (38 million views) and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s “Tumhe Dillagi”, reinterpreted by Jubin Nautiyal (34 million views).
Data from Mavericks shows that between 2011 and 2020, nearly half of Bollywood’s recreated songs came from the 1980s and 1990s. RD Burman led the trend with 25 tracks remixed, followed by Laxmikant-Pyarelal (18), Kalyanji-Anandji (15), and Bappi Lahiri (13). The resurgence of retro music reflects Bollywood’s strategy of blending nostalgia with contemporary sounds, even as rap and other genres begin to make their mark.
