Slumdog Millionaire has opened many Americans' ears to contemporary Bollywood music. I've dug 1970s Bollywood soundtracks for years but never really had a point-of-entry into today's popular Indian artists. Last week though, the world music curators at Putumayo released a great new compilation introducing me to quite a few Indian musicians that I want to check out further. And while it does feature two tracks from Bollywood star composer AR Rahman (Slumdog's Oscar-winning musical director), the collection also includes lounge music, folk, classical, and of course high-energy Indian indie pop. For a taste, check out the video above about Kiran Ahluwalia.Putumayo Presents India compilation
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I've never been a big fan of Putumayo comps, so here are some alternative routes into Indian music:
Used copies of "Ganga: Music of the Ganges," a wonderful 3CD compilation of Indian folk music - not filmi, not classical, but literally "music of the people." Most amazing thing: a gentleman who could play the hell out of a leaf. There's 9 copies on Amazon and its well worth your time.
If you don't mind going MP3, Amazon also has a faboo album featuring the Bauls of Bengal, a band of wandering mysics and musicians. Since it is self-titled, I'll link to the MP3 location.
I don't really know much about filmi, but I have heard great things about the Golden Voices from the Silver Screen series (Vol 1 - 3). Its earlier filmi but Asha Bosle, featured prominently on these discs, is supposed to be the best filmi singer ever.
So there you go...enjoy!
Third Floor Music has great selections from the Bollywood repertoire:
http://thirdfloormusic.blogspot.com/
I really enjoy Putumayo albums. In general, I feel like Putumayo cds aren't compilations in the traditional sense. The bar is set alot higher and you can hear and feel the amount of time and research that goes into the albums... and I just don't look at them like regular comps.
Thanks for these links. I've always really enjoyed the Putumayo compilations. In fact, I've probably bought almost a dozen over the years and have yet to be entirely disappointed. The series for children is fantastic, IMO.
I have to agree with Rob. I tend to avoid the Putumayo releases. Here are a few other compilations that are worth checking out are:
Bombay Connection has a two volume set. Volume one is "Funk From Bollywood Action Thrillers" and volume two is "Bombshell Baby of Bombay: Bouncin' Nightclub". http://www.bombay-connection.com/
Normal / QDK Media also has a two volumes of their "Doob Doob O Rama" series. http://www.moviegrooves.com/shop/doobdoob1.htm
And of course, there is the the "Bollywood Steel Guitar" compilation on Sublime Frequencies. http://www.sublimefrequencies.com/item.asp?Item_id=46&t=Bollywood-Steel-Guitar
Also, Ananda Shankar's recordings are well worth finding. He was the nephew of Ravi Shankar. http://www.hipwax.com/music/india_as.html
Bah, I looked at the track listing and its decent but its no Indian compilation as much as its an Western idea of Indian music and is not bollywood. Nothing wrong, but most of the singers/songs are not major hits in India.
Kiran Ahluwalia is great, i have two of her albums but again its more of a western thing. You dont hear about her in India, she is not doing any movies (big ones i know of). Bollywood is still king, and songs are known by what Movie its in.
If you want to hear Bollywood-Style of song, the type that put AR Rahman on the map in India one album to check out is "Bollywood: Songs from Popular Indian Cinema" which is decent and a good start but focus is the classics. but it still misses some of the "greats".
Two movies that I love, but our a bit oldies is Umrao Jaan http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpuyubZqD8s (The original) and Pakeezah http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IhPD_C5_LM .
Here's another interview with Kiran Ahluwalia
http://www.linktv.org/video/2319
And a music video, "Teray Darsan" :
http://www.linktv.org/video/3358
I've also been attracted to the music of India...I've had no exposure to Bollywood though I recently added a few movies to my Nexflix queue. However, my entry point into Indian music (besides Ravi Shankar and George Harrison - Concert for George 2002 - wonderful!)has been a few albums by Nitin Sawnhey - actually considered world fusion and Asian Underground, and an eastern influenced western group - Niya Yesh - Axiom of Choice. So though not "pure" India, these are sonically fulfilling and highly influenced by Indian music
"Putumayo" is Colombian for "K-Tel," right?
2nding #2s reply -- It's all about 13th floor...
http://thirdfloormusic.blogspot.com/
What Zuhaib said. Putumayo collections aren't so much ethnic music as pop-ethnic fusion. Listen to the woman in the video. Does she sound like she grew up in rural India?
Nothing really wrong with this approach, per se - It's not as if ethnic folk exists in some virgin state pre-Putumayo, but pawning this off as something "authentic" smells a bit off to me.
Slightly OT because this thread is about CDs, but for me the go-to site for Bollywood musical clips is http://sparklehayter.blogspot.com/.
Completely OT, Sparkle Hayter's comic mystery novels are also well worth checking out. No affiliation, just a fan.
There are indeed many other "brands" of compilations in the world-music genre, both good and bad.
My favorite series is the "Rough Guide" series. They tend to find music that is less pop-influenced, which I like a lot. Of course, I am a musician in a world sub-genre, so my taste may not be that of your average American...
And I've heard the India compilation. It's not bad, but I also don't think it exemplifies Bollywood either...too mellow for that!
That Putomayo in anyway issues "representative" compilations is a ridiculous idea. I would say they're just extremely biased to what the western folk-world-music audience/neo-colonial overlords want, but then it's not like they would ever include anything that disturbs their picture of old, wise, exotic natives being all spiritual and pre-modern. It's the familiar story of Westerners deciding what a people's culture actually is, rather than letting them do it themselves.
The only overview of Indian music I've seen that captures the whole diverse range without any pre-conceived notions of "quality" or "classical" or "the folk" is Peter Manuel's now-dated classic "Casette Culture". Short of that I'd just go for the most popular stuff, which still is film music and to a lesser extent remixes of film music... Hottest release so far this year (says I as a westerner) is probably the soundtrack to Billu Barber.
Oh, and of course there's the music of the Indian diaspora which a companies as culture-essentialist as Rough Guide and Putumayo would never acknowledge. Chutney and chutney-soca in Trinidad, Bhangra in England, "Urban Desi" in the US, "Bongo Bhangra" in Tanzania etc. etc.
Add to that the huge range of indian-influenced music (from 1950s greek indoprepi to contemporary indonesian dangdut) and you've got a picture that's far from insular and folk-mild as the Putumayists would have it, but in constant vibrant exchange with other popular music across the world.
I suppose that the Rough Guide to Bhangra Dance must be a figment of my imagination then.
if you want old school bollywood, check out bollywood breaks - good stuff!
http://www.amazon.com/Bollywood-Breaks-Various-Artists/dp/B00005YKAZ
Honestly there is no such thing as "Indian music" just as there is no such thing as "Indian language". The roots of Indian music are in the classical versions of North Indian and South Indian music, but there are other kinds of music which does not really stick to those scales.
The most popular versions of music are the bollywood variety which you can try here: http://www.dishant.com/hindi-top10.html