Desi Fly Chicks at the Grammy’s

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Even though the award is probably one of the ones announced at an event held prior to the televised Grammy Awards, I am still excited to see both Anoushka ShankarÂ’s Rise and Asha BhosleÂ’s You’ve Stolen My Heart- Songs From R D Burman’s Bollywood up for one of the prestigious awards. It is just too bad they are up for the same one. Announced this past Thursday, it turns out both Bhosle, sister of the illustrious Lata Mangeshkar, and Shankar, whose half-sister Norah Jones is also up for a Grammy, have each been nominated in the category of “best contemporary world music album.” While the Grammy category groups these albums together, I don’t think the albums could be more different.

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p>From what I have heard of these two records, both are great, just in very different ways. ShankarÂ’s Rise is an interesting effort: traditional Indian classical meets contemporary that is sometimes touched by electronic via the Midival Punditz’s Gaurav Raina. Bhosle’s YouÂ’ve Stolen My Heart , which was done with the Kronos Quartet, is pure filmy, but a nice musical reworking of classic Bollywood.

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p>Also nominated in the same category are Amadou & Mariam for Dimanche A Bamako, Gilberto Gil for Eletracústico, and Ladysmith Black Mambazo & The Strings Of The English Chamber Orchestra for No Boundaries. The Grammy’s air on CBS on Wednesday February 8. Let’s hope for a mutinous outcome, after all, there is a two out of five chance.

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p>More mutiny on Asha/Kronos here and here. Also, here is a link to a piece the Village Voice did last week on YouÂ’ve Stolen My Heart, and some other Bollywood music. I donÂ’t really like the article because I canÂ’t take it when critics who cover South Asian music always make food metaphors.

The music is an electric curry of sweeping overdubbed strings playing a blend of devotional music and action film motifs.

Can someone tell me what exactly an electric curry of sweeping overdubbed strings is?

16 thoughts on “Desi Fly Chicks at the Grammy’s”

  1. Can someone tell me what exactly an electric curry of sweeping overdubbed strings is?

    well, Sajit, it’s that exciting musical masala of aural spice. The whisper of curry leaves, the tinkle of tumeric…

    ugh. yeah, the food metaphors have got to stop.

  3. I saw Asha Bhosle and the Kronos Quartet at UCLA, and I have to say I wasn’t all that impressed… I thought that there was definitely something lacking in the way they arranged the songs. Maybe I’m just a traditionalist, but Asha’s voice sounded terribly misplaced with the string quartet background.

  4. Someone should start a blog devoted to these idiot’s and their invocation of curry, spices, and general food metaphors when reviewing desi novels, films and music – there are so many examples. Shame these half-wits. There are so many examples.

    The cliche represents an absence of intelligence and thought. As soon as I read that cliched shit, I know there is no real intelligence guiding that review.

  5. Wow ! Each of these comments is a samosa chock full of wisdom-filling, with a crispy coating of wit; taken together, a veritable vindaloo of opinion !

  6. LoL @ yomama

    This sepia mutiny blog is like the subtle spicing of an elaborate curry – sweet like an alphonso mango yet bitter like karela at the same time. Like a traditional Indian curry, it is composed of many different spices – and it holds all the succulence and passion and mystery and cruelty and beauty of a delicately flavoured chicken tikka masala. All the colours and smells of India are here. Take a bite. Its hot and spicy.

    blah de fucking blah

  9. This sepia mutiny blog is like the subtle spicing of an elaborate curry – sweet like an alphonso mango yet bitter like karela at the same time. Like a traditional Indian curry, it is composed of many different spices – and it holds all the succulence and passion and mystery and cruelty and beauty of a delicately flavoured chicken tikka masala. All the colours and smells of India are here. Take a bite. Its hot and spicy.

    ….and it gives you “garbar” in your digestive system if you have too much of it 😉

  10. I linked to an interview with Anoushka Shankar on NPR in September, but then when I got the album I was a bit disappointed. The performances and the production are all high quality, but the music somehow felt limp; it just didn’t do very much for me, either as classical or as ‘fusion’.

    On the other hand, the Bhosle/Kronos collaboration is at times a little chaotic, but it’s always energetic and interesting: it makes a definite statement. Partly because of that, and partly on sentimental grounds, I’m rooting more for Asha Bhosle; she’s earned herself a Grammy after 40+ years in the biz, hasn’t she?

    Still, I have to say that both Gilberto Gil and Amadou et Mariam are very tough competition. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of them takes the world music Grammy…

  13. i’m not sure if its apropos, but Kiran Ahuluwalia’s album looks great! the idea of ghazals written in the diaspora…wah

  15. I’m in two minds about non-desis reviewing desi stuff. Food metaphors are surely bad, what gets me even more is just a total lack of jive I feel with a non-desi’s descriptions of desi music. There was this review of a cd on NPR a few months ago – something called like “best of bollywood” or something. Man the songs were horrible – I knew they were stillborns from crappy movies. And the review was so weird too – I couldn’t figure out what was special about the cd that they had to cover it on NPR.

    I guess that cd was aimed at North American market, so they are perhaps going with what sounds about right to NA ears when listening to bollywood songs. I mean if something is called “best of bollywood” that’s not the collection one thinks of at all!