Been listening to Raghav’s debut album “Storyteller”. Out of the 16 tracks, I only actually like and listen to 4 over and over again :

#1 – Let’s work it out
#10 – Can’t get enough
#11 – Angel eyes
#16 – Teri baaton ne

The other 12 tracks are interesting and pretty experimental, but not neccesarily earth shaking stuff. Raghav even attempts a rehash of “Gori tera gaaon bada pyara”. However am truly impressed with the way he mixes hindi music with a very non-traditional groove, and the 4 tracks listed above are very good. I’ve seen some of the song videos, and they aren’t as well done.

Another group, this time Indian, from whom I await good music is “A Band of Boys”. This 5 member group, was formed and groomed with the help of Leslie Lewis, Hariharan and Vinod Nair in 2001. They released a debut album “Yeh bhi woh bhi” a couple of years back, and we haven’t heard anything since (I hope they haven’t dis-banded). The debut album featured seven tracks, and honestly all of them are pretty good. Out of the 5 band members (and each member can sing), only Cherokee shows true mettle while singing, but the compositions are good. “She drives me crazy” is my favorite of the album, with “Tera chehra” a close second. Each song explores a different style of music, some romantic ballads, some hip, and some just plain folksy.

Another CD playing in my car currently, is the music CD of the movie “Boom“. The film was a disaster, but the music is fantastic. Out of the 15 tracks on the CD, Track #2 “Mundian to bach ke” by Panjabi MC is the best, followed by Track #6 “Punjabi 5-0” from the Dum Dum Project. Also very good are Track #3 “Nachna tere naal” by The Rishi Rich Project (featuring Jay Sean and Juggy D), and Track #4 “I see you baby” by Groove Armada.