So what led to an explosion of songs that were sung only by men?

Music composer Amit Trivedi, who currently produces most of the songs sung by women, says it’s simply a matter of what the script demands. “In Secret Superstar, where the film is about a female singer, there will naturally be more female songs,” Trivedi says. But Secret Superstar is an exception: today’s scripts demand more songs sung by men.

The shifting narrative in Bollywood is another factor. With a reduced focus on the family in Bollywood stories, there are fewer opportunities for female songs. “Earlier, there”d be one song for the mother, another for the sister, and a third for the mother-in-law,” says Ganesh Anantharaman, film historian and author of the National Film Award-winning Bollywood Melodies: A History of the Hindi Film Song.

Anantharaman also mentions the “merging of the vamp and herione into one” as a reason. In the 50s and 60s, Lata Mangeshkar would sing for the heroine, while Asha Bhosle and Geeta Dutt would sing for the vamp. As the concept of the vamp has vanished, only the heroine has a chance to sing.

Recently, Bollywood storylines have given more prominence to women. But that doesn't necessarily translate to more female songs because lip-sync is not as popular as it used to be. So even in female-centric films like Queen and Kahaani, there aren’t many songs sung by women.

Kahaani 2, the thriller from 2016 with a female protagonist, does not have a single female solo; contrast that with three solos sung by men. Yet there is also 2017’s Lipstick Under My Burkha, where every song is sung by only women.