The transistor behind the counter

There is a reason purane gane and cheap bars go together, and it is not sentiment. These songs were recorded to survive terrible playback. One take, a live orchestra, a voice pushed to the front of the mix so it would still be audible through a transistor with a torn speaker. Play a 1965 recording and a 2015 recording through the same bad equipment and the old one wins, every time. Old is gold turns out to be an engineering observation as much as a nostalgic one.

Madan Mohan and the lyricist Raja Mehdi Ali Khan made two of the most durable things in this list. Aap Ki Nazron Ne Samjha, from Anpadh in 1962, and Lag Ja Gale, from Woh Kaun Thi in 1964 - the second one set in raga Pahari and picturised on Sadhana in a film almost nobody now remembers the plot of. Both are Lata Mangeshkar at her least decorated, which is when she is best.

Kishore Kumar is the other spine of this room, and specifically the R. D. Burman years. Yeh Shaam Mastani, from Kati Patang in 1971, is Anand Bakshi's writing and Burman's arrangement, sung at Rajesh Khanna's shoulder while the sun goes down. O Mere Dil Ke Chain, Pal Pal Dil Ke Paas, Chingari Koi Bhadke - four decades on, these are still the records that make a room of people over fifty stop talking at the same moment.

The set runs mostly 1960 to 1980, with the evergreen 90s melodies on the tail. It is the softest lighting on the site because the songs are mostly love songs, and a golden hits jukebox that opens with a dirge is a jukebox nobody leaves running. If you want the sadder end of the old catalogue, gham has it, and the sharabi standards from the same era are on their own page.