Crazy About Penn Masala--A Post Script (and Update!)

I feel sort of silly about yesterday's Penn Masala post.  My handy site tracker is showing a ton of  UPenn hits and I imagine one or two of them are from someone in the group or someone who knows them, and here I am looking like a silly batty fangirl!  So I thought I'd add a little post script to yesterday's post to dispel that somewhat.  :)

Yes, the men of Penn Masala are easy on the eyes.  Very easy.  But that's not why I love them.  I love them because they can do amazing things with the human voice, things that I, a semi-singer of classical music (NYSMA Solofest score of 100 on a level 6 solo, woot!) can only dream of doing.  I have crazy respect for what they do.

Let me tell you what gets me about them:  listen to their version of Mere Sapnon Ki Rani.  You hear that little clip in the rhythm when they sing "aur kab tak mujhe tadpaayegi tu"?  That kills me.  I love that.  I love how their voices come together on that line.  And again in Streets/Roobaroo, when the two songs collide in the middle and it's just so effortless and perfect...it's like they were designed to go together.  That's brilliant to me.

I'd love to be able to ask them a few questions about the mechanics of it all.  Do you spread out the solos to singers from different years so graduation doesn't claim all of the soloists at the same time?  Are there singers who only sing in Hindi and others who only sing in English?  Is it a case of not all of you speaking Hindi?  Does Bharat truly have the smoothest voice in the world?  Is the reason you don't cover a lot of bhangra because it's hard to beat box a dhol?  Curious minds want to know!

So that's my bit.  I hate coming across as a crazed fan when it comes to things I really care about--I seriously think Penn Masala is one of the best musical acts I've ever heard, and it's because of what they do, not how they look.

But let's be honest...they look damn good.  ;)

Update:  I've been told by Penn Masala alum Vishal Oberoi that it is indeed difficult to beatbox a dhol.  So there's that burning question answered. :)

Crazy About Penn Masala

(A post script to this post appears here.)

I went a little obsessive about Penn Masala last night on Facebook and then I woke up this morning and realized I had a blog.  Not only that, but a blog devoted to all things India, so really what better place for this?

I got to know Penn Masala the way I imagine a lot of us did--I caught some of their songs on the American Desi soundtrack and was hooked.

The Basics:

Penn Masala was formed in 1996 at the University of Pennsylvania, and at the time they were believed to be the first ever Hindi a cappella group.  As their popularity has grown universities all over the country have emulated their model; even my alma mater, the University of Maryland, has a Hindi a cappella group called Anokha.  Penn Masala performs all over the country (they did a show at Vanderbilt last month that I'm kicking myself for missing) and has even gone international with a big tour of India.

NPR did a great piece on them a few years ago--check it out for some more background as well as a taste of their work.

So what have they got going for them?  What makes them stand out from the dozens of other college a cappella groups?

Well for starters...these are some fine looking men.  Yeah, I said it.  They're hotties.  All of them. Who wouldn't want to be sung to by these guys?

photo from the Penn Masala website

And check out Ashima Yadava's excellent photo set from their tour in India:

Penn Masala at the Hard Rock Cafe

Ok.  I've had my swoon.  Let's get to the substance.  These boys can SING.

Normally the guys pick a Hindi tune and a western song and blend them perfectly, but from time to time they compose their own original songs, like this one:  Distant Places is gorgeous.  The lead singers are Ankit Dhir (English), Bharat Moudgil (Hindi) and Manoj Racherla (background).

Amazing right?  They have fantastic variety.  Check out their mix of Justin Timberlake's "Lovestoned" and "Ya Ali" from Gangster.  

Here's Ankit, with his crazy 'fro which I love (and from the sounds of it so do the women in that audience!). Bharat's singing the Hindi again--someone get that boy a job on a film soundtrack, he's fantastic.

Another professionally done video, this time it's a mashup of Coldplay's Viva la Vida and Jashn-e-Bahara from Jodhaa Akbar.

And pretty much my favorite thing ever, Manoj busting out his best Kevin Lyttle impression at Philly Fest:

Not content with Youtube videos?  No problem!  Penn Masala has recorded 7 albums (their latest, Panoramic, JUST came out) along with a compilation album.  They're all fantastic--you can head over to their site to get your own copies.  Do it!  They're well worth the money, and all the proceeds from album sales go straight to the group to help fund their tours, etc.

As a bit of a teaser, here's the song that put these guys on the map--their mega popular take on Aap Jaisa Koi!

PS: Ankit Dhir, if you see this, I love you.  Call me.  xoxo

Some Things Need Improving...

I fell in love with Penn Masala when I heard their renditions of "Mere Sapno Ki Rani" and "Aap Jaise Koi" on the American Desi soundtrack, and got one of their CDs just for those songs.  A month or so ago I decided to expand my horizons a bit and listened to the rest of the album.  I'm in love with the whole thing, naturally, and was especially thrilled to find their take on "Om Shanti Om," which I had only heard in Farah Khan's "Om Shanti Om."  (By the way, how did I not realize, in a film full of homages, that even the choreography of that song was a perfectly done copy of the same song from "Karz?")  But the song that really stood out to me was "Ek Pal Ka Jeena," from Hrithik Roshan's (and Amisha Patel's!) debut film "Kaho Na Pyar Hai."  I listened to it over and over and over, to the point of obsession (ask my sister).  The original, though, was crap.  Maybe not crap but...it was slow, and looked like something out of the early 90s (not uncommon for a Bollywood film made in 2000, but still).  I was unimpressed.

So what do you think?  I'm giving you the original (complete with Hrithik's delicious..well...everything) and the new version.  Enjoy!




And Penn Masala's version: