The barbershop had the best music in the neighbourhood

You did not go for the songs. You went because your mother said your hair was in your eyes again, and then you sat there for forty minutes with a cloth around your neck and no way to leave. That is how a whole generation learned the words to songs nobody chose.

The radio sat on a shelf near the ceiling, next to the talcum tin and a jar of combs in blue water. It played whatever was playing. Kumar Sanu, then an advertisement for a cement company, then Alka Yagnik, then the news, then Kumar Sanu again. Nobody adjusted it. Adjusting it was the barber's job and the barber was busy.

This theme plays the same way. There is no schedule and no next episode. It opens, the songs go on, and it keeps landing on the same handful of them, because that is honestly what those radios did.

Why 90s Hindi songs sound different in a saloon

A song you chose belongs to you. A song that was simply on belongs to the room, and to everyone who happened to be in it. The man waiting his turn, the boy in the chair, the barber with the scissors. None of you picked it and all of you know it.

That is why these particular songs have stayed. They were not anybody's favourite. They were unavoidable. Twenty five years later you hear four seconds of one and your shoulders remember the cloth.

What you are listening to

Hindi film songs from roughly 1986 to 1995, which is the stretch when a small speaker in a small shop could carry a whole afternoon. Lata Mangeshkar, Kumar Sanu, Udit Narayan, Alka Yagnik, S. P. Balasubrahmanyam. Nadeem Shravan and Anand Milind writing most of it.

It plays free, in your browser, with nothing to sign up for and nothing to install. The clock on the wall shows the real time in India, so if it is late where the shop is, it is late here too.

Questions people ask

What is Deluxe Saloon?

It is a 1990s Indian barbershop you can sit in. The room is painted, the television in the corner plays, and the songs are Hindi film songs from the late eighties and nineties. It runs in your browser and costs nothing.

Is it free, and do I need an account?

Free, and no. There is no sign up, no email, no app. Open the page and press play.

Where does the music come from?

Every song plays from YouTube in YouTube's own player. Nothing is hosted here and nothing can be downloaded from here.

Can I choose a song?

You can skip forward and back, but you cannot pick from a list, and that is deliberate. A saloon radio never let you choose either. Being handed the next song is most of the feeling.

Which songs are in it?

Hindi film songs from about 1986 to 1995. The ones that played everywhere rather than the ones critics liked. If something obvious is missing, tell us and we will add it.

Are there other themes?

Yes. A drawing room on a Doordarshan Sunday is the other theme open now, and more are being drawn. You can move between them from the picker on the left.