How can I find new, good, Indian music?

March 11, 2009 6:22 AM

What music - specifically, songs that Americans haven't heard - are the cool kids in India dancing to these days? Is there a good Indian "Top 40?" Any websites that stream this stuff?
posted by tiburon to Media & Arts (6 answers total)

If you're driving through Mumbai or Delhi and are tuned to popular stations (Radio Mirchi for instance), you'll quickly learn that there's little to no divide between popular Indian music and Hindi film music. The soundtracks for films release prior to the films themselves and constitute the bulk of popular music for le youth. Indipop has something of a hold (Lucky Ali is a good example of this although I don't know if he's released an album recently) but film music is where it's at.

Radio Mirchi's website has lists of the current http://www.radiomirchi.com/indipop_10.php">Indi pop 10, the Angrezi (western) top 20, and the Mirchi 20 ("mirchi" literally means spicy - but in this context it refers to film songs).
posted by artemisia at 6:33 AM on March 11, 2009

Oops, I messed that first link up good. Never post before coffee!

Indi pop Top Ten

Enjoy!
posted by artemisia at 6:34 AM on March 11, 2009

If you're in the UK, you can listen to the BBC Asian Network online - I think you can stream it from outside the UK but I'm not sure about that. Worth a try anyway? I like 2 of their shows - Love Bollywood (contemporary Hindi film music) and the Asian Network Chart (a mixture of bhangra, pop and Bollywood stuff).

Even if you can't listen to the shows, you can use the website to see what's being listened to at the moment. Once you know what you're looking for, you can buy a lot of it on iTunes.
The Asian Network Chart

Hope that helps. That's how I keep track of what's being released at the moment anyway.
posted by Ziggy500 at 6:58 AM on March 11, 2009

Seconding the fact that there is almost no difference between popular Hindi music and Bollywood film music. Well, there is something called Indi-pop or Indian Pop music but that's still a pretty nascent market.

This list (at MusicIndiaOnline) is pretty good for listening to the most popular Hindi music of the day. They also have similar lists and songs for other Indian languages as well.
posted by sk381 at 11:13 AM on March 11, 2009

For streaming quite a many albums, check out Dhingana
posted by bbyboi at 7:04 PM on March 11, 2009

Raaga.com is an excellent free-streaming music resource; in addition to Hindi (Bollywood) songs, there are many other languages available of which the most popular/widespread are probably Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Kannada (not everyone knows Hindi in India). Most of the languages have a Top 10 list that features the up-to-the-minute most-popular songs being listened to. All the Indians I've known living abroad listen to music on raaga.com constantly. It's also streamed in excellent quality, unlike musicindiaonline.

Other options: www.musicplug.in, www.dishant.com, www.hummaa.com.
posted by Kasuvandi at 10:52 PM on July 22, 2009