Teenie Bopper
Write this off as exuberance: Shalini is called the Tamil Madonna. Now figure why: she isn't glamorous, and she doesn't expose. Must be the talent or the easy-listening lyrics that pine about love, heartache and tears. "You have to vibe with the crowd," says the wise one. "Otherwise, pack up."

She has packed in two major Tamil-pop hit albums already, one with a local label and another with Magnasound, and is working on her third. In the past three years, Shalini has become Tamil pop, taking it from nothing to noteworthy. Shalini has a decade of classical western piano and two years each of Carnatic and Hindustani vocals behind her. This is the bedrock of the new pop approach: solid grounding. It seems to work. At a recent concert in Coimbatore, she was billed with the far more glamorous Raageshwari. The 15,000 crowd stomped to Shalini's half-hour of pop dazzle, totally overshadowing the wannabe Indipop queen. Live and learn.