Shankar Mahadevan
Shankar Mahadevan was a software engineer and a Carnatic and Hindustani singer when the album Breathless (1998) — a song sung in what sounded like one breath — made him a name. As one third of Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy he composed Dil Chahta Hai, Kal Ho Naa Ho, Bunty Aur Babli, Rock On and My Name Is Khan; as a singer he gave them Kajra Re, Pretty Woman, Mitwa, Maa, Sajdaa and dozens more.
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Landmark songs
Life
He was born in Chembur in 1967 to a Tamil family, trained in Carnatic music from the age of five and later in Hindustani under Pandit Shrinivas Khale, and worked at Oracle after an engineering degree. Breathless (1998) and the trio's first scores — Dus (unreleased), Mission Kashmir, Dil Chahta Hai (2001) — set his two careers running together; he has won National Awards as both composer and singer, including for Maa (Taare Zameen Par) and the Marathi Katyar Kaljat Ghusli, and the Padma Shri in 2019. He runs an online music academy and has two sons, Siddharth and Shivam, who sing.
The voice
A bright, open, carrying tenor with a Carnatic singer's accuracy and stamina — he can sing a fast, syllable-heavy line at full volume without a smear — and a warmth in the slow song (Maa) that his technique never crowds out.
Composers
- Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy
- A.R. Rahman
- Pritam
- Vishal-Shekhar
- Ilaiyaraaja
Sang for
- Shah Rukh Khan
- Aamir Khan
- Abhishek Bachchan
- Amitabh Bachchan
- Farhan Akhtar
Sang with
Honours
Padma Shri (2019) · National Film Awards for Kandukondain Kandukondain (Tamil, 2000), Taare Zameen Par (2007, Maa — as part of the music team), Katyar Kaljat Ghusli (Marathi, 2015) and others · Filmfare Awards as composer for Dil Chahta Hai, Kal Ho Naa Ho, Bunty Aur Babli, Rock On, My Name Is Khan
More film songs 17 songs, by year
1990s
2000s
2010s
year not stated
Ghazals and non-film recordings 9
Devotional and patriotic 3
From the Doordarshan and Akashvani archives 3
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Singers of the same years
- Asha Bhosle
- Kavita Krishnamurthy
- Kumar Sanu
- Udit Narayan
- Abhijeet Bhattacharya
- Hariharan
- Sadhana Sargam
- Alka Yagnik
- Jaspinder Narula
- Shaan
- Sonu Nigam
- KK
- Arijit Singh
- Atif Aslam
- Mohit Chauhan
- Rahat Fateh Ali Khan
- Javed Ali
- Kailash Kher
- Neha Kakkar
- Sunidhi Chauhan
- Armaan Malik
- Shreya Ghoshal
- Jubin Nautiyal
- Papon
- Benny Dayal
- Shilpa Rao
- Neeti Mohan
- Monali Thakur
- Shalmali Kholgade
- Mika Singh