This discussion comes and goes. Here's the gauntlet: any of you want to ask these to the man himself. Not promoisning but I can try thro my cousin. A gang of 10 will be rejected but 3-4 people, yes, I can try. Any takers?
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This discussion comes and goes. Here's the gauntlet: any of you want to ask these to the man himself. Not promoisning but I can try thro my cousin. A gang of 10 will be rejected but 3-4 people, yes, I can try. Any takers?
Plum,
Definitely not me :) I also have someone who has access to Prasad studios but I have told him I don't want to come anywhere near there :)
Jai,
You must be correct about 'Vietnam Colony'. I think it was a Mallu film remake.
Here we can go do some data mining
http://thiraipaadal.com/md.php?page=...&sort=year_asc
This is the link to a list from 1999 all IR albums - now let us list the songs and see what raagas have been used.
Let us leave the subjective rants like - i dont like this album - that has synth etc., etc., - let us be impartial.
and go about this in a due diligent way.. once we are done with the albums in this page, let us move on to the right...
The first album in the list is :
http://thiraipaadal.com/album.php?AL...R00049&lang=en
this has got some nice melodies.
who wants to go first and make a list of raagas in this album?
The list totally has got 75 albums (i am excluding the undatable albums added to the list and independent works like thiruvasagam which are included in the catalogue..
even assuming 4 unique songs per album it is close to 300 songs.. I guess we have a finite number to do an analysis and proclaim a conclusion at the end..
try to sort out the rehashed tune and ignore one/more composition(s) too in the same scale.
from this album, vayasu pulla vayasu pulla... is exactly same tune as gundu malli gundu malli...
Count as 1. rehashed tune.
same scale , new & different tune..... Go for it. then exercise will be exciting too.
oh... Raja, I expect nothing from you, You gave it all for this life and more! I am content.:ty:
Vinatha.
Listening to "Kolusu konjum Raagam" from Chinna durai - a 1999 unrecognized gem by raasa.
It is one word AWESOME. Never heard this song all these times - this awesome melody has been
sung in the most smooth manner by Unni Krishnan and Devi (???). I would classify it along with
the new age - tribal fusions Raaja has done in Bhoomigeethe (kannada movie). Another striking aspect
is the way chorus track has been shaped - with all the care and they sing on par with the lead singers.
Awesome song.. gonna be on my playlist for a while now..
Idhoda raagam ennaannu sollunga please..
Suresh, vel
Well.. there's another group of IR fans you missed out. They started out like every IR fan 'he is invincible', and when ARR succeeded commercially, were looking eagerly what IR was going to do. IR (as I thought he should) came up with an entirely new approach which majority felt sounded ok but not great. I think this has nothing to do ARR's catchy tunes or recordings or synth (contrast to what suresh postulated). If it's really good music, people will come - and IR fans will be the first. Good example: ennai thaalatta varuvaalo. I didn't see a catchy tune or glowing recording or excellent synth. In fact, the ARR/KR style orchestration was the only bother for me, but the song was just too good to dislike for anyone.
The group I mention refuse to believe the 'OK, but not great' part . They strongly vouch for the songs and say they are still great. And they give examples from raman abdullah..! Well, there is one charanam start or a nice piano interlude that no current MD can match, but does it make the song great?!! Appears to me they just can't accept their demi-god has degraded but instead knowingly or unknowingly 'adjusted' their tastes. (One can see this clear when one 'dheemi dheemi' song hits. They just go ga ga.. when in reality, it's a good catchy one of 80's type - but nothing to rave about. ) They seem to just dig enough to find some parts that are cool and get satisfaction. Or maybe the music just grows on them to become impressive. How do I know this? Well, I was one of them and was as biased until about 'kaathal kavithai' times.. when realization finally set in.
True, we all come from his 80's songs as the baseline. But it doesn't mean that we are expecting the same tunes or same style. Rather we are wishing for songs of that standard. Actually he has set himself a high standard by giving top compositions even in commercial songs (e.g. 'chamakku chamakku'). The hard fact was - in the new approach he has chosen - he has tried enough but was unable to impress much. So.. factors like complacency, bruised ego, age - cruel it may be for IR fans like us - cannot be ruled out. 'situations demanded' is a not a strong argument. We are talking about the overall music quality over a reasonably large collection of his recent outputs.
Debatable it maybe, an excellent film song must appeal to you quickly - no matter it's a tea stall or radio. Things can be complex, but something must touch you somewhere if it's great music (recall IR's words in jayatv press meet). If it gets so intricate that one has to follow the composer, understand him, dig deep enough to apprecitiate it, well we are talking about classical music.. not film music. Composer will be sure loser in this game. Of all people, IR must know this. Maybe he is getting false impressions from people who just can't say anything negative. But he sure must be able to sense it.
vel, i see your perspective but we are not beggars that he throws free cd's into our pockets. Fans have every right to give positive and negative feedback and demand good music, and a good fan like you know that positive-only feedback hurts everyone. Actually in our case, we are talking about HCIRF's where the relationship has more rights - if you ask me ;) Not blind devotion.
Well I shd disclaim that I'm not a subbudu-wannabe :D. I'm still a diehard IR fan who wants to remain truly unbiased and critique on his music where it truly deserves. My hope is: it'll get ultimately come back to us as greater music.. :)
With that I rest my case..
Plum, it'll be futile. First of all, we all will be dumbstruck by his shear presence. Even if we manage to raise it up, his responses will be so general and deep enough (I'm afraid not to the point though) that anyone will be able to argue.
I know Lakshminarayanan (of CI fame) once met him personally to talk, and he did but he could only listen to him calmly :)
Annae RR, naan ungala sollalae....i have been here for years and i know your passion very well ! It is good that you dont have blind devotion. We need to have disruptive team members amongst us, else we will not be a good team of music lovers.
My only point was, like blind devotion you mentioned, i would also be careful against people with blind/careless/utterly dismissive hatred. Avlodhaannae en aadhangam !
[P.S. regarding IR throwing free CDs? -- honestly, i am sure atleast 70% of the people never buy ORIGINAL CDs. Only "free meals" dhaan, listening to online samples and hurriedly writing quick reviews...But usually (and unfortunately) that crowd only makes the loudest noise....]
RR,
Ofcourse that is where we depart, right? :) I mean, people accepted 'ennai thaalaata' and 'Kadalukku Mariyadhai' very easily. The same people did not accept 'Avatharam' with the same passion. (I was in Chennai then.) 'Avatharam' used to lag behind in all the song countdown shows whereas 'ennai thalatta varuvaala' did go to the top and was played everywhere. If you ask me, as a rasika, I will go with 'Avatharam' to my grave. It is a masterpiece (not the OK kind, but a real masterpiece in every sense of the word. I wouldn't mind missing 'Kadhalukku Mariyadhai'. It is a nice album but not in the same class as 'Avatharam' to me. In what way would 'thenral vandhum theendum' be inferior to the 80s masterpieces?
You believe that if songs are good people will appreciate it. I believe the definition of good remains the same but the definition of 'popular' keeps changing. The 80s Illayaraja was good and popular. The later day Illayaraja is good but not popular. The 'Kadalukku Mariyadhai' vs 'Avatharam' will prove that. When the most popular songs of today are the same rehashed tunes of Harris Jayaraj, the mindless kuthu of Vijay Antony, or Yuvan singing is his non singable voice, if people don't like a 'oli tharum sooriyanum' or 'unnai patri sonnaal', I am not surprised.
I for one, don't agree on the tea stall argument. That is the perfect definition of a catchy song, something with the Hindi director and actor, Raj Kapoor, used to tell his music directors. He definitely did get catchy tunes, which were hits. And MDs like Shankar Jaikishen, OP Nayyar were ruling the roost. At that same time people like Madan Mohan, Roshan, Jaidev, Salil Choudary were getting only occasional hits and may of their compositions didn't go down well with the tea stalls. Yet, today the number of Madan Mohan and Roshan compositions that get heard is definitely on par, if not more, compared to the compositions of Shankar Jaikishen and OP Nayyar. If you follow the history of Hindi film music, you can clearly see that dichotomy. There were MDs of class, who never got the adulation. And there were MDs for mass, who got the adulation but their music, atleast according to me, never reached the heights of the class MDs. It was only in South India that the popular MDs were also the best MDs of those times. It was our luck that Raja had so many ideas to communicate and yet he was able to reach everyone. To some extent he moulded our tastes towards high class music.
Though I want to go on, let me just summarize the difference between our point of views and then stop. You belong to a group which believes Raja is not at his peak form, he has definitely fallen behind musically (maybe due to him being lazy, or him being disinterested, or him just losing the ability or maybe age has caught up with him.) You refuse to believe that in his quite large output the last decade, he has done much to match up to the standards he set himself. I, ofcourse, belong to the group which believes the opposite. Raja's touch is intact, people's taste have changed and the definition of the popular song has changed and Raja, given his need to put in some complex ideas into his compositions, refuses to dumb down his music. I believe that the later 90s and 2000s showed the full potential of Raja in form of terrific albums like 'Kala Pani', 'Guru', 'Virumandi', 'Tiruvasagam', 'Mumbai Express','Oru Yathramozhi', 'Pazhassiraja' etc, which, in my opinion don't have a counterpart in the 80s.
In short, the gap in our understanding of Raja is wide and each one considers his / her view the correct. So that chasm will not be closed any time soon :) The proof: We can't even agree that 'Snehaveedu' is a terrific album :D
Good point :thumbsup: (You can also add 'or else tfmpage/hub will not thrive' ;)) Fully with you on this one.Quote:
We need to have disruptive team members amongst us, else we will not be a good team of music lovers.
On the 'free meals', that's true for the whole film industry and i agree that significant fraction are enjoying it. But I think IR fans are better. Just see how fast the live concert videos were taken off youtube recently. Forget the kids who fight just for the sake of it. No point worrying about them. But, ithu thaan saakku-nnu, aNNe endru solli en vayasu-ai increase pannidaadheenga..