Your Indi-Pop Fix: Raghu Dixit

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Every so often I link to musicians I learn about via MTV India, a desi TV channel I subscribe to at home. Sometimes readers groan in horror at my taste (“God this is a horrible song”), but for some reason I persist…

Today, meet Raghu Dixit, whose song “Hey Bhagwan” is starting to show up in the rotation on MTV India:

The sound quality in the YouTube upload is poor, but at least you get a sense of what the music is like (you can hear a higher quality preview of the song here; also, another video sharing site, Vimeo, is carrying the video). I also like the lyrics (My rough translation of the chorus: “Hey Bhagwan, give me life all over again”).

Raghu Dixit also has a blog, with a detailed account of the shooting of this video at Mehboob Studios in Bombay.

In the U.S. Raghu Dixit’s CD is on sale at CD Baby, where you can also preview the other songs on the album (check out “Mysore Se Ayi”).

28 thoughts on “Your Indi-Pop Fix: Raghu Dixit”

  1. Amardeep,

    I heard his music when I was in India earlier this year, I like it. I like Kailash Kher a lot and I think his album Kailasa is really good, same token I think Atif Aslam is really good too.

  2. this is brilliant. there’s so much energy in his voice. good post amardeep.

  4. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s nephew (named Rahat Fateh Ali Khan) is hot in India right now too. I picked up his album ‘Charkha’ while there, and some of the songs are good. One of his videos is on heavy rotation these days as well.

  5. Vinod, technically, they’re wearing Dhotis, not Lungis.

    Here is Wikipedia on the distinction:

    The lungi is a similar piece of cloth [to a Dhoti] worn in similar manner, though only on informal occasions. The lungi is not as long and is basically a bigger version of a towel worn to fight the extremely hot weather in India. The sarong is another similar item of clothing.

  6. The CDBaby link doesn’t work. Props to Raghu. He has been a fixture in Bangalore for a while now.

  8. I’ve heard Raghu in a concert at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and Mysore se aayi re sure is a really great number!

  9. Oh, and here I thought it was going to be the Indian remake of XTC’s “Hey God.” Just kidding.

    Yes, it translates as “Oh God, give me my life again.” Is this an emerging Reborn In Krishna/Rama/Siva movement? Again, I kid.

    Also, some of the bandmembers are in dhothis while others are in lungis. How’s that for mediation? 🙂

  10. This song sounds like Soundgarden meets Santana meets Christian ROck meets equal parts decent and suckitude. All I know is the first few seconds gave me a migraine. It has its moments later on.

  12. Music directors Vishal-Shekhar are recording Raghu under their label and this is the first time they are doing this for any singer.

  13. It looks as if the link from his website takes you to a music store called musicyogi.com (where prices are in rupees), and I can’t seem to find it on CD Baby. However, it looks as if it will be available for download from Amazon (DRM free of course) on 4/22/2008. I’ll definitely be getting it, it sounds pretty cool.

  14. This is the advent of Indi-Rock , good riddance Indi-pop. This guy is the real deal . Have heard his band perform live, they differ from other Indian rock acts in that they refuse to play covers and have a strong Indian / folk influence. I am a little disappointed in their sound here, it seems to have been toned down quite a bit for the mass market. They are much harder/ rock like live (or at least were a few years ago). But still good to see.

  15. This is AWESOME! Thanks Sepia for making me ahead of my teenagers curve sometimes 😉 The violinist is wearing a lungi/veshti! I am listening to Mysore se Aayi since the parents are from Mysore!!! Thanks Prof!

  16. Wow! Robust, lots’a energy. No I hope these guys don’t start singing for the movies – where a single song could fetch them as much as they make in a year now. Non-filmi musicians give in to the to the filmi – Shankar Mahadevan, being our most notable loss in recent years. Glad Palash Polly Sen and the Euphoria crew haven’t given in yet(?). Wonder what it would have been like if Ilayaraja and Rahman had stayed out of the movies a little longer.

    Reminds me of the Loggins and Messina piece – Brother of mine – from Full Sail, the only (?) one of those few rock pieces with a violin solo and a guitar solo. Great work. Keep it up macchi or mach as they say in Bangalore!

  20. I just realized that this band ‘Outernational’ is from Brooklyn-so prolly old news for a lot of mutineers-my apologies. I found some other videos of this band on you tube. They are pretty good-and nothin better than watching an apna bai rockin out-really makes me feel like we have ‘arrived’ 🙂

  22. I would trade some key for holler! Raghu’s colleagues are already on the sessions scene so how long before they are all snapped up by the movies and move from giving us one album a year to just one song a year in some movie? Somehow movie songs don’t have the same repeatable quality. That’s why maybe Ilayaraja stopped delivering movie song only concerts years ago.

  23. “rockin’ out in Lunghi’s. I love it.”

    Check out Metal in Malayalam: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9BgnBy2F7Q&feature=related If you excuse the cheesy English write-ons, the product is pretty good. As someone who knows the language, the songwriting is good, bordering on literary.

    These here integrate a rural, folksy Indian/Keralite sensibility and lyrics with hard rock….a feat I would not have thought possible till I saw this. Great concept- doesn’t sound contrived at all! (at palces, teh audio and video are slightly off)….the kids are all homegrown, and the lead singer comes from my hometown, Thrissur..

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SB1J9D9WRds&NR=1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezWZafXv2OM&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kjsBZQO8NI&feature=related

  24. check’s right…they are making waves in india right now, and their music is bloody brilliant…do yourselves a favour and give it a listen.

  26. that song made me want to yak. there are soooooo many better indi-rockers out there. this sounds like some kind of cheap cut and paste song made in the backyard. what about gold spot or bamboo shoots??