Kula Shaker - K

Kula Shaker are an English psychedelic rock band.Led by frontman Crispian Mills,the band came to prominence during the Post-Britpop era of the late 1990s.The band enjoyed commercial success in the UK between 1996 and 1999, notching up a number of Top 10 hits on the UK Singles Chart, including "Tattva", "Hey Dude", "Govinda", "Hush", and "Sound of Drums".The band's debut album, K, reached No. 1 on the UK Albums Chart.

The band are known for their interest in traditional Indian music, culture, and mysticism, with a number of their most famous songs, including "Tattva" and "Govinda", featuring lyrics written in Sanskrit.The name Kula Shaker was itself inspired by King Kulasekhara, an Indian emperor from the 8th century.In addition, many of the band's songs feature traditional Indian instruments, such as the sitar, tamboura, and tabla, juxtaposed with guitar-heavy, Western rock instrumentation

K is the debut album by Kula Shaker, released on 16 September 1996. When it was released, it became the fastest selling debut album in Britain since Elastica's debut the previous year.[6] The album reached the #1 position in the UK charts, however in America it stalled at #200 in the Billboard charts.

The track "Grateful When You're Dead/Jerry Was There" is a homage to Jerry Garcia and his band The Grateful Dead.[citation needed] The Grateful Dead's psychedelic rock style is an influence on Kula Shaker's first and second albums. The hidden track after "Hollow Man" is a recording of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, speaking about his own guru.

The cover art (by comic-book artist Dave Gibbons) consists of various images related to the letter K, including: John F. Kennedy, Lord Kitchener, Karl Marx, Gene Kelly, Katharine Hepburn, Ken Dodd, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Danny Kaye, Kal-El (Superman), Boris Karloff (as Frankenstein's monster), Krishna, King Kong, Martin Luther King, Jr., 2 Knights (a pair of Keys on one of them), a Kettle, Ken Dodd, Kali, the Kaiser, Nikita Khrushchev, Grace Kelly, the number 11 (symbolizing K) and Rudyard Kipling's book Kim.

In 1998 K was placed at number 44 on Q's 100 greatest albums of all time list