IR's New albums - Ver 2008

MumbaiRamki,


Ofcourse i agree that music needs to be fresh and different to keep our interest level up. But IR is no longer in that phase of his career where he needs to experiment with songs in each movie. As i already posted in some other thread before, IR at this stage of his life and career has to be really motivated and really inspired with a movie or Director or it has to someone close to him like Kamal, or Bharatiraaja or Balki to really interest him in experimenting with songs. Again what could be a routine love song situation for IR(because of doing so many movies) may be an interesting situation for a new or upcoming music director so people should not argue that someone else has given good music for this kind of situation. Whle we can argue as to why he accepts these other movies ,there may be many reasons which i am not aware of. But we should keep in mind that while movie directors continue to churn out the same kind of story and treatment for years now but somehow we expect the music to be different and experimental.
Simply put we need to tone down our expectations from IR for these other movies with lesser known directors. IR does not have the urge nor the energy i think to experiment with songs in these movies. Ofcourse we need to remember that the same kind of mvoies in his prime phase of career involved a lot of outstanding scores and experiments in songs. I guess he just does these movies nowadays because the director or producer wanted him to. Ofcourse having said all this, the songs are still very melodious and have flashes of his trademark brilliance in them. That is all one should expect in these times. for anything new or experimentation we will have to wait for Kamal or Bharatiraaja(if it ever materialises) , Balki or any other really talented director.
We all have to realize that IR has done it all in his career so far.but we should be thankful that in this age of kuthu and remixes we are still able to hear some good melodius stuff from IR now and then.

Prasad, let me put my reviews in context.

Outdated/ archaic is something I use to express MY feeling towards an album. No way am I trying to pass it off as public opinion.

I agree that there are takers for every kind of music and music becomes outdated/ archaic only to individual people based on what they have listened and how much they have listened.

I do try and avoid using the 'we' in my reviews since that is clearly misleading - will remember that in future - this is a fair point from you. Have already effected that change in Innathe Chintha Vishayam's review.

Karthik

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Originally Posted by rprasad

I have not heard the albums yet. But i dont quite agree with the way the INETK Karthik reviews IR albums( i dont read other MD album reviews). So my post is directed towards his reviews as i have read a lot of them by now.His frequent use of phrases like Outdated or Archaic is silly. No music becomes outdated, one can never say at any point of time that only a certain kind of music will appeal to the people. Good music will always draw people. So just because you think IR's tune sounds like 80's does not mean it will not appeal. If the tune is good and orchestration is catchy(who cares if its 80 or 90's do common people really care?) the song will work. and also no one grows out of listenining to good music. SO when say we have grown out of it, please include only yourself . You are not representing the views of the people .You never grow out of a listeniing to a particular style of music, you only become more adaptive in enjoying other styles of music as well. Try to be open minded when it comes to reviewing an album. Music should always be reviewed to as either being good pleasing to the ear or soulful or on the other hand does not appeal at all, no melody or no rythm. There is nodate stamp or expiry date for good music. I think you should keep this in mind when reviewing future albums.

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Though agreeing with rprasad's qualms, there are factors to be considered here.
I watched Rasathanthram over the weekend and had heard the album before. The album did not make much of an impact except a few songs.
However when i watched it in the movie, the songs were so GOOD.
There is none of the "archaic" or "outdated" feel that came to my mind.
In the glory days of raja - the albums were released not so ahead of the movie and in some cases the music cassette got released after the movie broke the BO.
Nowadays the CDs are released months ahead and we are reviewing them with no idea as to what the story is and where it comes in the movie. Hence we all (including Karthik) have to do a difficult job of reviewing a film song with an album mentality, a mentality which even the composers have accepted. This includes the great ARR or the whizkids Harris or Yuvan. HOwever our Raja comes from a different era where the story and situation dictate the tune and its catchiness. Vague and incomprehensible situations beget vague and inspiring songs, and it is no wonder.

Karthik,

no worries. My intention is not to critic your reviews. I do appreciate your short but crisp reviews of albums.just wanted to point out certain things. I think the underlying point is that reviewing IR's recent albums is going to be always tricky since from what i observered people are not really sure what they expect or want from his music anymore. Some want more modern sounds, some want his 80's style orchestration etc. My only point is as i mentioned in my previous post, since IR is at that point in his career where experimenting or trying new sounds is going to be extremely limited to very select few directors/old pals movies, its better if we just enjoy any good melodies from him. Even if they seem like heard before with heard before orchestrations.

I think we tone down our expectation level and listen ,we will be surprised by the kind of melodies IR can still create even after so many years. Lets all remember IR is not trying to be No 1 music director anymore. Lets enjoy whatever that is good music from his new albums. Ofcourse his body of work is so large, we may not finish listening to his gems in our lifetime.

Hi Prasad,
Is there a way to communicate to IR, the lack of enthusiasm from his fans for his use of synths ? These days, sound engineering is so good, if real instruments are recorded it would sound very very good. (I hope at one point of time, here in tfmpage some people were trying to release newly mastered versions of old tracks for better sound).

IR's interludes are like 'jam' sessions (with instrumentalists having a dialogue and promptly picking up from where the musician had left) and I can't imaging a jam session with keyboards. Also, the background of his songs, needs the natural resonance of the real instruments (nAdham) to fill it out (unlike in ARR's albums where specifically some kind of drone sounds are added). In these albums I cannot tolerated the high pitched synth strings (like in the kastoori pottu pallavi).
It is probably that these sythesizers/keyboards are playing real instrument sound samples in some case, but overall we still get the same synth feel. I dont think I am alone in this opinion, you can see many people feel about this the same way.

I liked "kandu kandu", "manasoru", "kadapurathoru" from these albums.

Meanwhile, there is an Ad in today's tamil paper for a movie called "Azhagar malai" directed by S.P.Rajkumar(Is this Devayani's husband?).Ad said movie shoot starts today.

Interesting part of the Ad was, it said "Anbu sagotharar isaignani ilayaraja innnisaiyil"

I googled SP Rajkumar.

This guy is not Devayani's husband.
This man has directed "Karmegam", "En purushan kuzhanthai maathiri " etc..

When I listened to Manasinakare, I never liked the song very much. I finally got to watch Manasinakare (thanks to air india!) the songs were perfect fit for the movie and situation. With out knowing malayalam, to understand the music was really hard, but with subtitles "Marakkudaayal" song was mind blowing.

Needless to say, BGM was mind blowing.

Wonder why IR doenst get such good script in Tamil!

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With out knowing malayalam, to understand the music was really hard

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You are right to some extent..
I am able to appreciate IR's malayalam works better because I have some touch with Kerala culture..

The real success of an artist is this..when he does a Mallu thing, Mallu people should be able to feel that work to be their own. When he does Telugu work, andhra people should be able to identify it as their own, etc..
This is where people like Kamal and IR stand out from their rivals !

When I told my mother that Manasinakkare was by IR, she was surprised how IR could come up with such a kerala kind of tunes and feel. Like wise, the songs like "Vaan pole vannam.." from Salangai oli are typical Andhra tunes..though it suited for tamil as well..

I see that people had given the two examples that I wanted to give wrt the "Innathe.." album. It stuck me that it was very much like 'Rasatanthram' and 'Manasinnakare'. Initially I too didn't like these albums but now I keep listening to them often. I had watched Rasatanthram but not Manasinnakare. 'Innathe.."'s music is on the same lines as these films that Illayaraja gave for Sathyan. (Wish he had given more on the lines of 'Vinodayatra'). I had also dismissed the music of 'Ponmudipuzhayorathu', feeling that only 'Oru Chiri Kandal' was good. Now I listen to 'Vazhimaru', 'Ammyennu' and 'Nadaswaram Keto' regularly. I like the small mridangam bit which comes in almost when the charanam is ending in 'Nadaswaram Keto'. (Raja uses the thavil for similar effect in the song 'Kandu Kandu'.) We may possibly reassess our feelings for these songs once we hear them in the context of the movie.

The Illayaraja song and Bhavatarini song are excellent in SMS. Worth buying for these songs. 'Kadapurathu' is nice as well.

I would second kiru's comments on the Illayaraja's synth usage. As Ramki had mentioned, people expect clarity of sound. What puzzles me is that almost every MD including the newbees seem to get a recording quality which is high compared to what we get in Raja's albums. Is it just me that feels like this or is this real?

raja_fan: I had written about Illayaraja's contribution to film music in other South Indian languages in my blog. You can read it at http://sureshs65music.blogspot.com/2...1_archive.html
(I am not very prompt in responding to comments. Please don't mind if I don't respond immediately to comments)

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Originally Posted by crajkumar_be

Hulkster,
I understand your point (futility of expecting 'change' in his songs) but its rather sad, isn't it? He's done it all and asking him to "prove" something is funny alright but then, if he is still composing songs, it is for others and one cannot say "His interest is only in BGM and he has lost interest in songs" right? As long as he is composing songs, he is fair game IMO. If he's no longer interested, he can stop doing songs.

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The point is even if he is fair game..it can only be in our eyes...but in reality he is not a commercial MD and strongly past it. He is currently exploring a faction of music that will bring him closer to the beethoven range rather than coming back to a level where he has already conquered. As a fan i can understand that growing up from his songs you guys are disappointed about the reused tunes and quality but is it because he has lost his touch? certainly not...come on peeps we know IR more than other MDs...is songs the only thing to judge IR with? There is way more than just songs. Talking about instrumental music thiruvasagam has alot of experimental usage and it came in the same time with oru naal oru kanavu and andha naal gnyabagam which had some reused pieces.

Looks like 'azhagar malai' is the one being produced by Sangili Murugan. I don't think a KM can be expected:-(

Malleppuvvu:
http://www.indiaglitz.com/channels/t...cle/37672.html

This line is quite funny in this report:
"Ilayaraja has supplied his tunes to this film":)

http://www.techsatish.com/2007/07/va...angai-oli.html

Oh! Shri.Ilayaraja!!

I miss you terribly!

GET BACK NOW!

Please dont stone me for saying this. I feel Raja has reached a point of no return jus like all his famous predecessors like GR, MSV etc attained. I dunt think their fans had unreasonable expectation from them at the twilight of their career , because they understood it was the law of nature and remained contented with their body of work in their prime. Similarly, we Raja fans should be happy with his humongous work from late 70's till 90's and start looking for good music from elsewhere. I dont intend the "preaching" tone. But isn't that the most practical way, I ask myself
// Today in jayatv's "then kinnam", they featured songs from 1982 and I couldnt help exclaiming at how Raja stood out tall when compared with his peers like MSV, ShankarGanesh , ChandraBose etc. Well, is it surprising , after hearing songs like "sandha kavigaL paadidum" ?

thumburu,
I completely agree with wrt his Film compositions. I think we have a great WC Master in him who has just shown glimpses of his brilliance in his movie scores such as Guru/Lajja (BG Score). His sense of arranging things for a huge orchestra is just amazing. Wonder why he's being a proverbial well-frog :-(

If Raja has the penchant of ARR in experimenting...Ah !

thumburu,

Don't worry, I will not stone you :)

But I want to argue that IR is different from the other examples you have given.

Though we IR fans are not satisfied with his music nowadays, I don't think IR is outdated or reached a point of no return. Take his recent movies ( within past 5 years ) like Virumandi, Ramana, Pithamagan , Manasellam , even Madhu. Atleast one song in these movies are commonly heard even now..

Show a MD in tamil who after 30 years in his career still has a line up of movies yet to be released..

Dhanam.
KKP.
Ajanta.
Mayilu.
Malaikkallan.
Azhagar malai.
Nandalala.
Amir's speculated "kannapiran"
Fazil's next movie.

Add to this his Malayalam and telugu projects.
I do not think MSV had such a number of movies in mid eighties ( assuming he came to the field in the mid 50s ).

People say ARR is to IR as IR was to MSV.
After 16 years of IR's entry , i.e in 1992, where was MSV in the field ?
Now it is 16 years after ARR's entry, IR is still with work at hand.

This is why we continue to expect from IR instead of turning to elsewhere.

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If Raja has the penchant of ARR in experimenting...Ah !

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Please think well before you type these comments !
Your comparision is really funny !

ARR experimenting and IR not doing so ?

:banghead:

Digression:
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/fr/200...2850180300.htm

Interview with Bombay Ravi who composed nakhakshadhangal for Hariharan, director of Pazhassi Raja

End-digression

If Hariharan was the one who selected the existing tune for 'manjaL prasAdhavum netRiyil chArththi' out of 6,7 tunes, we can definitely expect some good selection from Raja as well.:-)

Just a point. If Mumbai Express (@ 60+) was not experimenting, pray tell what is! :)

Another news item on a new IR Film in Gulzar's (Hindi Lyricist) website www.gulzaronline.com

" Gulzar saab once again with Maestro Illaiyaraja
Gulzar saab has been teamed up with Illaiyaraja for a new under production film directed by debutant Ajoy Verma. The yet untitled film marks the coming together aof a great pair that gave us an unforgettable score in Sadma. Even after so many years and so many thousands of listenings, songs like Ae zindagi gale laga le and Surmai ankhiyon me nanha munna ik sapna deja re are as fresh as they were 25 years ago. After Sadma, Gulzar saab and Illaiyaraja shared the credits in Revathy's Mitr My Friend where Gulzar saab penned one song.

For this new film a few songs have already been recorded, one of them is "Mujhko itne se kaam pe rakh lo" rendered by Roop Kumar Rathore. (Remember last time Vishal made the same poem into a song in Boodhey Pahadon Par)

Looking forward to the coming together of two legends... more details soon.."

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Originally Posted by irir123

Rookie - thats an interesting thing you mentioned - that you got hooked to IR's music only after 1992!! hmm - have you listened to IR's 'hidden'/lesser-known gems from the late 70s/80s ?! i can give you a list if u dont have one

also, IMHO, its very important that one gets to listen to all kinds of stuff such as the music of MSV, Madan Mohan, Salilda, Naushad, Roshan,SD Burman and others in other languages - the scores may not have the orchestral grandeur of IR's, but in terms of sheer melody-making, we had such incredible talent during the 50s-70s - listening to them would give one a wide perspective of how different composers thought/created for a given situation and how their time period influenced their scores!

At the moment, with the exception of an ARR, or a rare Vishal Bharadwaj, we dont have that many composers with strong roots in classicism and compositional ability (IR is there, but he is not doing much music, n always get to do junk movies)

Composers are born, not made! there may be so many talented composers, but without the desire/outlet!

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I do have a collection of around 400 of IRs GEMS (Melodies and class songs only,..no Pathos and all in Tamil).I do gift these songs to my friends and relatives and obviously, get their appreciation for the collection.

I also have IRs post 2000 songs from all the languages.

Any IR collection is always welcome.

Why dont we just focus on IR and stop comparisons here! "Kaakkaikku Thank Kunju Pon Kunju", so for us IR is god and for ARR fans, he is their god, so lets move on.

rooky & njv, Thanks for reminding the hubbers the topic of the thread. Posts comparing MD's have been moved to the appropriate thread in "Current Topics" forum.

Please stick to IR's new albums in this thread. While comparison of specific songs from the new albums is fine, comparison of IR's career with other MDs has to be avoided in this thread.

I really appreciate this action from app_engine..Well done

http://www.indiaglitz.com/channels/m...cle/37734.html

With this movie added, how many is he doing right now there?

1) InnatheChinthaVishayam with MohanLal,DIR:Sathiyan
2) PazhassiRaja with Mammooty,DIR: Hariharn
3) SMS,
4) Manikandan,the animation movie,
5) Kutty Shranku with Mammooty,
6) This new addition SWAPNAMALIKA with Mohanlal.

Is IR on a signing spree in Malayalam? we shouldn't have any complaints there :)

just to throw some light on BR-IR serial 'Thekkitthipponnu" ...

few might have already seen the promos in Kalaignar TV.. for the past 2 days, they are promoting this with the title song (approx 20 sec)....

at least for me, it sounds very nice...esp the rhythm section w/o any synth... :D

it seems BR-IR combo works again in serial also... it starts rolling from 14th April... :roll:

watch the promo in kalaignar TV. ... they are doing it aggressively.. atleast for every 20 min.. you can see this promo...

raajarasigan,

I was thinking of posting about "Therkatthi ponnu" title song and you did it !

And yes, it is very nice. though I hate seeing that Swarnamalya ! :)

BR-IR combo bounces back in a promising way :)

So where was this tune hiding inside IR ? A director like BR was needed to bring this out.

This vindicates the stand of many like me, that what IR badly needs now is good directors !

>>>>
Please think well before you type these comments !
Your comparision is really funny !

ARR experimenting and IR not doing so ?

<<<<

it may sound funny to you...Get me an album from Raja post 97 (leave guru, kalapani & MX aside) which was completely experimental and is as refreshing as a "Madai thirandhu" or "poongadhavE" or "thathAram mozhiyamma"/"devasangeetham" in the 'recent' times !!

You may come up with one "ilaNgAthu veesudhE" here and a "meetAdha oru veeNai" there, but the Raja I worshipped in the 80s is long gone and that's a fact !!

How many singers have Raja experimented with even in his prime ?? SPB/KJY/Mano and SJ/KSC/PS and once in a while you see deepan chakravarthy/uma ramanan/SN surendar....Look at the number of singers arr has experimented with ???

I won't rate ARR higher than Raja (at least not in this life) as an overall composer Raja/MSV are way too ahead of ARR. There are certain aspects such as sound quality and a sheer penchant to experiment (esp post 97) that Raja needs to pick from arr.

by IR's standards his experimentation has definitely come down - he did give some memorable stuff like 'oru naal' (devadhai) and a few more in malayalam - songs in yatra mozhi (pon velilo, thaimavin thanalil, the latter kind-of invoked some van gogh painting with its lush countryside, yeri thanal, another one by Jayachandran) and one killer song "saradendhu paadi" from kaliyoonjalu - but thats jst abt it - Tamil films have become IR's unwanted child of late - (( donno why

Shankar,

I think we cannot discuss IR-ARR comparision anymore here.
So I am not able to answer you now here..

http://sify.com/movies/malayalam/ful...39205&cid=2362

innaththE chinthA vishayam audio is supposedly well received. Any links that give samples?

I have been wanting to write in this forum for a long time now. Atleast in the wake of this sudden "comparisons" of MDs. app_engine promptly put things in perspective with a quick and curt reply. Please this post is not in the comparing mode nor intended to support a particular MD over the other. This post is clearly written after a long pensive thought on "why things happen the way they do?" and also the as a reply to the painful sounds emerging out of tfmpage from some hardhore (??) IR fans, some even threatening him to pack up and leave.

A quick disclaimer at this point, I an no psychologist nor majored in anything close to psychology. Froid was someone I knew only in books and through "Chandramuki" as one of the guyz who could have been Rajni's prorfessor. :D

And now the bold statement: (kind of like thesis header)

The Importance of Memories: The creation and re-creation in one's lifetime!

A bit of a Froid like back-up on memories:

We as humans just thrive on memories. All that we do during our lifetime is create memories at every-stage and keep re-living them through some means. Some bad and some good. We all like to remember the good ones all the time. When we are young there is simply of reportoire of memories to chose from as life gets a little monotonous as we grow up. Later we create memories in college and later marriage and then children. Very often than not, the earliest memories are somehow replaced by the new ones for the lack of a "stimulant" and as we grow older, we begin processing only the latest ones. The basic essence of the plot is

EVERY MEMORY NEEDS A STIMULANT

For some reason or the other, our happiest memories are always tied to a childhood.(that is those who had a good childhood). The next ones seem to be college days. After that maybe life becos a tad too difficult to establish good memories . There are occasional sparks like marriage and baby. So from the sequence point of view, we just need something that would trigger the childhood memory gates open. For folks at tfmpage, those 90% of those triggers seem to be songs. (sometimes movies do as well)

P.S. (The very fact that the "traditional" indian mothers want to be a part of the son/daughter's life, be it from choosing the spouse to raising her grandkid is mostly linked to the fact that throughout most part of her life most of her memories is around her child. And she constantly strives for new memories for as a housewife all this while , she had nuthing else to add to her "memory bank". And the fathers are always had the opportunity to form memories at workplace and hanging out with friends.)

Songs : Our stimulant

Lets get to the crux of it. For most folks who are in your late 20's, 30's and 40's, just cant shake the impact of IR's songs. These songs are the perfect "stimulants" that we are looking for. There is a song for every occasion. I have always wondered why some IR songs send your soul into a spin. There is some kind of cosmic vibration when you hear those and a feeling that you have never felt before. Coupled with his songs there is always a memory. Raja just puts the icing on the cake with his soothing melody and gives you a "stimulant" that you treasure forever. With IR you feel forever young because 15 secs into the songs, you already start cherishing our memories, most of it some 20 years back, all happy ones. His songs make you even remember the sad ones you forever want to be etched in your life. You simply refuse to get older.
Now here is the sad part. What about the memories you form now? The icing that Raja once coated is missing, and IR fans just cant find solace in any others music. Its not like they dont like others music, they just dont feel it. Music (songs) to them dont mean anything than a mere 5 mins of sound. You just move on after its end. Nuthing special. Its the same case like our father and grandfathers who found and associated their memories with MSV/KVM that they found the current MDs intolerable. (even when IR was around, just like IR fans find ARR). For ARR fans its the same thing. ARR fans in the teens and mid 20's have their life associated with his songs. Fan? simply put , that one song which can stimulate you to recollect. If you get more such songs from a particular person, you become his fan.

It Is the music which reminds us of our memories, not the other way around.

IR fans who seldom relate his songs to events in life, will have to form other stimulants. IR has done his job. He kept us forever young. And those complaining about him and begging him to quit just ask yourself WHY?
My apologies for this brevity of a post. :)

http://www.hindu.com/mp/2008/04/10/s...1050780500.htm

As expected, only the title track is by IR !

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Originally Posted by raja_fan

http://www.hindu.com/mp/2008/04/10/stories/2008041050780500.htm

As expected, only the title track is by IR !

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Hey - you can't expect IR to score BGM for a serial :)
Having said that , the title track is quite quite nice, albeit i could find traces of Athi idhu vaaththu kuttam's shadow in this song ..

Ranjitha , napolean look quite earthy but the huge mismatch is swarna malya ...( somehow i absolutely hate her in any form of entertainment except bharatanatyam )

MumbaiRamki,

Yes, I too do not want IR to score BGM for a mega serial !

How come we two share the same opinion on Swarnamalya ?!
See my earlier post on the title song. I hate her too, not even her dance I like..:)

Count me too in the "Hate Swarnamalya" list. She looks all fake.
Iam atleast relieved that IR is limiting himself with just title track. Who has the patience to sit thru mega serials!!!

Hope BR kick starts "Kutra Parambarai" soon !
But his declarations like "if Kamal does not do the lead role, I will do it" are threatening..

btw..what happened to his Bommalaattam ?!

Nandalala is a story revolving around a child. Good scope should be there for a gripping BGM

http://tamilfilmrating.com/news/fullnews.asp?ref=2008

http://www.musicindiaonline.com/musi...ovie_name.9640

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