Songs to remember: Music that hit the right notes
Songs and soundtracks that caught our attention in 2025
By Forbes India
Last Updated: Dec 24, 2025, 12:59 IST2 min
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You’re So Vain by Carly Simon (1972)
It’s a funny story about how I came to know about the song. A close friend played it when we were in a car, saying she wanted to dedicate it to me. I was excited. First couple of lines in, and I thought pretty great about myself. It was very short-lived as a few seconds later came the line, “You’re so vain. You probably think this song is about you.”
I thought that the song is one of those that grabs you from the first line itself: Sharp, witty, and dripping with just the right amount of attitude. The beats are great, those that can instantly make you tap your toes, if not get up and dance. Released almost four decades ago, the song is high up on my playlist and has made me check out and enjoy more songs by Simon like ‘You Belong To Me’or ‘Nobody Does It Better’.
-Samidha Jain
Walk of the bride (Seetha Kalyana Vaibhogame) by Agam
Growing up in a sleepy city in South India, it was usual to wake up to MS Subbulakshmi’s ‘Sri Venkateswara Suprabhatham’ playing on the neighbours’ transistor tuned to AIR. No wedding in the Hyderabad of the 1990s was complete without Dr M Balamuralikrishna’s rendition of ‘Sitha kalyanam’ describing the celestial event of Rama and Sitha’s wedding.
Agam’s version gives a modern twist to this Thiyagaraja composition in raga Kurinji and I re-discovered it at a friend’s wedding in Kanpur. It sounded modern and yet like the celebrations of the ’90s. This one has the right mix of Carnatic and metal.
-Payal Ganguly
Studio Ghibli soundtrack
When ChatGPT launched its feature that could transform any photograph into a Studio Ghibli-like, artificial intelligence (AI)-generated visual, the whole world seemed to have been taken by it. Some, from the sidelines, watched in horror. I can only hope that among the millions who were swept up by the trend, at least a few would have learnt something about Ghibli, or taken an interest in the celebrated humans behind the art.
What I feel has remained relatively less celebrated—it’s difficult to overshadow the cult following the art has generated over the years—is the background score of Ghibli films. A lot of the films’ score has been composed by Joe Hisaishi, who worked with Hayao Miyazaki—one of the founding directors of the studio—for more than 30 years. Each film has its own motif, which frequent listeners begin to associate with specific films. The albums have been rendered in multiple instruments, with entire collections in piano, or other string and wind instruments. (I have always preferred the piano over others, perhaps because they are a delight to play out as well.)
There are innumerable playlists of jazz, house and electronica—and every conceivable genre—available on all music streaming platforms, that you can keep running in the background of your daily life. What the Ghibli playlists have, in addition to the fantastic music itself, are characters from the films that will float into your mind every now and then. And spending a few fleeting moments with Totoro can never be a bad thing.
-Jasodhara Banerjee
First Published: Dec 24, 2025, 13:04
Subscribe Now(This story appears in the Dec 26, 2025 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, Click here.)
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