Did you know Daler Mehndi produced Tunak Tunak Tun to prove the media wrong?
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00:00Daler Mehendi is only a hit because his videos use glamour and girls as crutches.
00:05That's what the media said about the singer and this jibe inspired him to make a song
00:10with no one but four of himself.
00:12If anything has stood the test of time, it is Daler Mehendi's song
00:19which was released in 1998 but stays relevant even today.
00:24Posted to his official YouTube channel in 2023,
00:28Tunak Tunak Tun had gained at least 97.8 lakh views in one year alone.
00:33To give you some perspective, his other song
00:39took 10 years to amass 83 lakh views on YouTube.
00:42Now, let me take you back to the time when Daler Mehendi came up with the concept of
00:49In the 1990s, Daler was gaining considerable traction for his music.
00:54But one day, when he had interviews lined up,
00:56his flight got delayed and he reached the venue late.
01:00He sent the media persons walked out saying
01:02Daler Mehendi is only a hit because his videos use glamour and girls as crutches.
01:08This perception might have stemmed from his previous
01:10albums where Daler was seen dancing alongside women.
01:15After he was criticised, Daler said he challenged himself to make a song
01:20with nothing but five of him.
01:22He then released his fourth album called Tunak Tunak Tun which had the title song as well.
01:27Right after its teaser release, 10 lakh cassettes and 2 lakh CDs were released
01:32and he said the entire money came in advance.
01:35A thing to note here is that Tunak Tunak Tun was the first Indian video
01:39to make extensive use of the green screen.
01:42The entire song had computer-generated backgrounds
01:45with four Dalers dancing and conversing in front of them.
01:49Someone on social media also noted,
01:51bro is so powerful that he's wearing green clothes on green screen.
01:55Tunak Tunak Tun spread not only beyond the Punjabi and Hindi market
01:59but also globally to countries such as the United Kingdom, South Korea and Japan.
02:09The earworm inspired spin-offs and parodies.
02:11Speaking about the song's reach, Daler told the Times of India,
02:15the reason for it being such a hit is because it is meaningful.
02:19There is fun and laughter.
02:21The video is clean. There is not that usual boy-girl story.
02:24It is targeted to a mass audience no matter what age.
02:31The song became a meme before memes were a thing.
02:33In 2000, the first parody of the song came up on the internet.
02:38It had American comedian Daniel Gamilla perform the song's hook-steps in his house.
02:43A search of Tunak Tunak Tun parodies on YouTube
02:46would take you back to a couple of parodies published in the early 2000s.
02:51Years passed. The digital space evolved.
02:54Daler Mehndi went to jail on charges of human trafficking and got bail.
02:58But Tunak Tunak Tun continued to stay relevant through it all.