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55 albums · 1956–2025

Music of India, from the ragas and the film songs to Rahman, indie and rap

· 2 min read · by 1001 Albums

Ravi Shankar and Anoushka Shankar playing sitar on stage with tabla and tanpura players
Zakir Hussain at the tabla on stageA.R. Rahman on stage with three singers and dancers behind them
Ravi Shankar with Anoushka Shankar at the Fes Festival of World Sacred Music, 2005. Photo: Josiehen, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. · Zakir Hussain at the tabla at Bharat Bhavan, Bhopal, 2019. Photo: Suyash Dwivedi, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. · A.R. Rahman on stage at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo, 2010. Photo: Harrywad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

India's music has two classical traditions at its root, the Hindustani of the north and the Carnatic of the south, and a film industry that gave the whole country its songs: Ravi Shankar's sitar, Bismillah Khan's shehnai and Bhimsen Joshi's khayal, M.S. Subbulakshmi's kutcheris, Naushad and S.D. Burman writing for Lata Mangeshkar, Mohammed Rafi and Kishore Kumar, R.D. Burman and Asha Bhosle, Shakti and Zakir Hussain between the ragas and jazz, Jagjit Singh's ghazals, Ilaiyaraaja in Madras and A.R. Rahman's Roja and Dil Se, Alisha Chinai, Daler Mehndi and Lucky Ali in the nineties, Indian Ocean and Avial, Prateek Kuhad and Peter Cat Recording Co., Nucleya's bass and the rap of Divine, Seedhe Maut and Hanumankind. The list has 55 records from 1956 to 2025, one or two by each of the names above and only a small part of what they made; Parikrama is missing because its songs are not on Deezer as an album, and the film industries beyond Hindi and Tamil, the folk traditions of the states, the qawwali of Pakistan and most of the classical repertoire would each need a list of their own. About 43 hours of music, 5 days of a few records each.

By genre

World 9%Rock 8%Pop 7%Other 76%
  • World 9%
  • Rock 8%
  • Pop 7%
  • Other 76%

The genres named most: indian, film music, hindustani classical, bollywood, hip hop, pop.

The colours of the covers

A stripe for each cover, in the colour Tidal picks from it, sorted by hue; the greys at the end.

Where the music comes from

Music from 1 country: India 55. The deeper the colour, the more albums: one, two to four, five to nine, ten and more.

The 1950s

The 1960s

The 1970s

The 1980s

The 1990s

The 2000s

The 2010s

The 2020s

More lists

Lists of Countries first, then others; all of them on the blog. The blog.