Telugu Music Recommendations

See also my related post on Telugu movies. I also wrote a bit on Telugu literature that's been translated in English, though there's not much yet.

I spent around two months exclusively listening to Telugu music, predominantly from films, and it was an awesome experience. Some of this is among the best music I’ve ever heard. Unfortunately I didn’t take very good notes. This post was a pain to write because the entire process was basically like “Oh yeah, Allari Mogudu was an awesome album… or was it Allari Priyudu? Wait, could it have been Allari Alludu? Or Allari Premikudu? Oh no! Well, at least I know for sure that I recommend Gharana Mogudu, that one was great… or actually, maybe it was Gharana Bullodu? Or possibly Gharana Alludu? This is hopeless.” Thankfully I did have some notes to work from, and some titles that I remembered. My memory happens to be pretty good, even if Telugu titles are a puzzle to me. It just meant I had to go through and re-listen to a lot of music, which made me very sad as it made me miss South India dearly.

I spent most of my time listening to the music of Keeravani and Ilaiyaraaja, mostly from the 80s and 90s, focusing more on Keeravani as he is of Telugu origin and has done the majority of his work in the Telugu industry, unlike Ilaiyaraaja who is of Tamil origin and has done most of his work in the Tamil industry (though both have had extensive careers outside of their home industries, and of course I’m sticking to original Telugu albums, no dubs). Hopefully neither of them need much of an introduction. Since they both have an insane amount of music and I had no clue where to start, I chose to focus on soundtracks for films by major directors and stars as well as award winning albums, though I also did a lot of random listening. 

The male vocals are mostly sung by SPB, who is said to be the most prolific singer of all time with over 50,000 songs, and who I actually didn’t know was of Telugu origin (I always thought he was Tamil, perhaps because I associate him with Tamil music, which I’ve listened to much more of in the past, and because his name sounded Tamil). His voice, for me, is the sweet sound of South India. K. S. Chithra (of Kerala origin) does many of the gorgeous female vocals. I love both of their voices and they have some incredible verbal gymnastics on some of the songs.

To begin, I’ll start with the music of M. M. Keeravani, the world’s most famous Telugu musician, and the person who introduced me to both Indian music and to The Carpenters (I’ve yet to deep dive into the latter, maybe one day). Today he is best known for his works with Rajamouli (his cousin), and that’s how I first got to know him, though he was probably the hottest name in Telugu music in the 90s as well, before Rajamouli’s 2001 debut. I mostly knew his work with Rajamouli and some scattered work of his (mostly 2000s/2010s) before my Hyderabad trip, but I spent over a month going through his earlier catalogue (and barely scratching the surface) during and after my Hyderabad trip.

As I mentioned in my Telugu cinema post, Eega was the film that made me take an interest in Indian cinema, back in 2012. The movie had very entertaining music, though it wasn’t the sort of thing I cared to listen to outside of the film (I feel this is also mostly true of the grand, cinematic music of Baahubali and the mix of epic and joyful songs in RRR as well, though both are excellent soundtracks). Still, I found myself listening to it to relive the experience of the film.

Around a week after seeing Eega, I watched Magadheera, and I fell in love with the music. It has five original songs and a remake (though I didn’t know it at the time, here is the original which I now prefer, a brilliant song). All were great, ridiculously catchy, full of sounds and arrangements that were mindblowing and wonderfully exotic to me, new to Indian music at the time. They may not be as exotic to me today, and my preferences have shifted from the more modern sounds here to the older sounds of his earlier work, but the album undoubtedly holds up with one strong song after another. 

The Vikramarkudu album is probably my next favorite of their pre-Baahubali collaborations, full of super catchy songs that mix earthy and electronic sounds really well. Overall his works with Rajamouli are consistently fun, before the more serious turn with Baahubali. Worth going through (one favorite song is Cheema Cheema, but there are many others). There’s a lot of cheese and kitsch in here, as there is in all Indian film music from the era, but in the right mindset I don’t mind. I even like his Telugu take on Cotton Eyed Joe.

There is more from Keeravani’s Telugu work in that era that I was fond of (I liked the Badrinath album a lot back in the day), but honestly this isn’t the kind of music I really go for these days. I’ve gotten old and cranky and at some point found all global music from after my birthdate in 1990 to be unlistenable, and even post-1980 became questionable, though I have since mellowed out and been able to find some balance. I explore and appreciate the sounds of the youths from time to time, and one nice thing about Indian music is that the 80s and 90s still sound old enough to appeal to me.

Other than RRR I hadn’t listened to any of Keeravani’s music for many years, but my time in Hyderabad gave me a good excuse to go through his early works. He debuted in 1990 and as was the norm back then put out a ridiculous amount of music in his first decade. I count 12 albums in 1991, 8 in Telugu, and he became even more prolific mid-decade, only slowing down toward the end of the 90s. I listened to dozens of his albums from the 1990s and it’s a goldmine of phenomenal music. Someone with greater expertise than me will have to say how his music differs from other South Indian music directors of the era (I only really know Ilaiyaraaja from the pre-Rahman days, and though his music sounds different I have a hard time articulating why). I will just say that his music is full of great melodies, surprising, quirky arrangements, a fresh energy, and an attention to detail in the production, whether it is rooted in more traditional sounds or blended with western pop music sounds.

Keeravani was great out of the gate. His 1990 album Dagudu Muthala Dhampathyam (one of two from that year, according to Wikipedia) is excellent. Many consider his breakthrough to be Kshana Kshanam (1991), which I feel has great work in it but is overproduced with overly long songs and too many cheap synth sounds, though that may suit the film just fine. Two of my favorites are from 1992: Sundarakanda and Aapadbandhavudu, both terrific. I already mentioned the classic Bangaru Kodi Petta from Gharana Mogudu, and I also love Pandu Pandu Pandu. And two wonderful albums from 1993: Rajeswari Kalyanam and Allari Priyudu.

There’s a lot of great stuff from 1994. I don’t love all of it, but Allari Premikudu has some great amazing songs, namely Ku Ku Ku, Chilipi Chilaka, and Puttadi Bommaku. Muddula Priyudu is another great one, it’s all good but Sirichandanapu Chekka and Vasanthamala are particularly outstanding. I really love Mudduki Mude and Kalara Bida from Theerpu.

Subha Sankalpam (1995) is a great start to finish listen. Pelli Sandadi (1996) is another where I don’t love all of the songs, but Nava Manmadhuda is a favorite track, and overall the album is quite good. Annamayya (part one and two) (1997) is something different, more rooted in classical music with songs based on the compositions of the 15th century saint the movie is about. It’s amazing.

There is of course much more, and I eagerly await your recommendations! This is hopefully a good introduction to his earlier work. Put these on repeat for a few months, as I did. After writing this I found a list I made of scattered great songs from him, but this is enough for now, and you can make your own discoveries.

Looking back on these albums, it feels like a totally different Keeravani from one I know from Rajamouli’s work. What a career! I do have a preference for the earlier work overall, but I love some of the newer stuff and it's laudable that he’s still going strong after three decades. This didn’t occur to me until now, but he and Rahman (who debuted in 1992) are the only music directors I can think of who did major work in the 1990s and are still among the top names today. 

Here is a great writeup by Sankhayan Ghosh on Keeravani's career, with a focus on his Hindi work. Other than that I didn't find anything good to read about him. There's a small industry of books on music directors with a few more coming out each year, I expect one on Keeravani one of these days.

Beyond Keeravani, I’m not familiar with much work by any other Telugu music directors. I should explore more. Maybe Raj-Koti should come next. Their country western tinged Chakkiliginthala Ragam is a total delight.

And of course, the legendary Ilaiyaraaja has tons of Telugu music. Of his 1000+ albums, I’m not sure how many are in Telugu, but I stopped counting after 100. I don’t know how many I listened to, but I heard enough to make a great top five. I didn’t realize a few that I knew from my extensive Tamil listening were originally Telugu albums, including Swati Muthyam (1986) and Geetanjali (1989), both runners up. (One of these days I’ll publish my Tamil Nadu recommendations and write more about the great Isaignani, but until then enjoy these.)

Top five, subject to chance:

Sagara Sangamam (1983)

Swarnakamalam (1988)

Shiva (1989)

Jagadeka Veerudu Athiloka Sundari (1990)

Aditya 369 (1991)

And two more runners up, the more classical Rudrameena (1988) and the crazy synth funk (some of it spaghetti western inspired) Kondaveeti Donga (1990).

Also, since I haven’t seen any pre-2000s Telugu movies, I guess all of the above mentioned films are on my watchlist!

What about non-film Telugu music? Well, there’s the extensive classical music, and as I understand it Telugu plays a major role in Carnatic music. From Historical Dictionary of the Tamils, found on Wikipedia: “In precolonial or early-modern South India, Telugu became the cultural language of the south, including the Tamil country, somewhat similar to the overwhelming dominance of French as the cultural language of modern Europe during roughly the same era. Therefore, Telugu predominates in the evolution of Carnatic music, and it is the practice to teach Telugu language in music colleges to those aspiring to become singers.” When I was in Hampi I learned of Telugu court musicians who made important contributions to the genre, but I’m not the person to ask about this. 

For more modern stuff, I came across a guy named Alluri who makes Telugu language indie pop-rock music. I heard his second album O Katha which is great! (That playlist has the songs out of order so just search for the album on a streaming app if you have one.) I should have listened to it more than twice, as well as his first album Man of Truth (which is in English), but with Keeravani and Ilaiyaraaja to listen to, well, sorry, Alluri didn’t stand a chance. Still, some of you might like this, and might want Telugu language music but are sick of the 80s and 90s South Indian film music. (Me? Never.) 

I can’t find liner notes but I believe it’s produced by an Italian guy who has an Italian film music inspired band called Calibro 35 (which has been sampled by Dr. Dre and Jay-Z and been featured in some movies), and who has done “additional production” and engineering for Muse in addition to working in some capacity with other big names. This was recorded in Milan, and I can hear the Morricone-esque touches in some of the songs. If you told me the album were in Italian, I’d probably believe it, and Alluri said in an interview that “When the British came to India they heard Telugu and called it 'the Italian of the east', because all words end with a vowel, not a consonant.” News to me, but I’m happy to have learned this. His upcoming album titled The Beautiful Indian Rock & Roll Explosion is reportedly in a mix of Telugu, Hindi, and English. I'll keep an eye out for that.