AMERICAN BOLLYWOOD
If your music taste was anything like mine in the early 2010s (angsty, I-hate-this-town, etc.), Young the Giant’s COUGH SYRUP is probably floating around somewhere in one of your old playlists. I was always a casual YTG listener, but their most recent project, AMERICAN BOLLYWOOD, has quickly converted me into a proper fan. They’ve been releasing the album throughout the year in various acts, with the fourth and final act dropping just last month. It marks the band’s first release since cutting ties with their record label and starting their own label under the name Jungle Youth Publishing. Frontman Sameer Gadhia has described the project as a “reappropriation of sound,” taking popular Eastern-inspired elements of Western music (often found in the grunge and psychedelic genres) and reclaiming them in tribute to the South Asian diaspora. It is both a story about an Indian immigrant finding his way in a new country and a story about the band finding its way in a new era of their career. I definitely recommend starting with the beautifully personal and cinematic music video for the titular track AMERICAN BOLLYWOOD, a song that fully made me cry in the car when I first heard it. My other personal recs include WAKE UP, INSOMNIA DOLLAR $TORE, and OTHERSIDE.
—Anna Lee, Development Intern
