IR New Albums - Old responses (5 Aug 2006)

"Talking about 'magalir mattum' which was a laugh riot(that was the intention i believe) had no scope for serious compositions and raja gave exactly what he was asked,copmletely comic yet a cut above the usual cacophony"

ahmed, MMKR was a laugh riot too and look at some of the songs in that album. Even Sathi leelavathi was a little better. To me Magalir mattum was just sheer cacophony and worse, an aging SJ trying to sing in different voices was too much. Maharasan was a disaster but the movie didnt deserve anything better.

Regarding Pithamagan/Virumandi, the songs were OK but nothing special that we havent already before save for perhaps "adada alangaara". Kamal and IR singing together was againa bit too much. I liked the Shreya Ghosal songs and thought Onna Vida was overrated (popularity probably because of its picturization and the movie itself)

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Originally Posted by vijayr

Hmm.. spoken like a true fan(atic)...

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Keep things technical..not personal.

"Keep things technical..not personal."

Applies to the following comment as well, doesnt it?

"karagAttakkAri is considered bad ??? Come on..some people dont even get past the first few lines, having put off by the beats !!! If you listen past the first two lines, you will see IR in the tune !!! "

Its very obvious who that "some people" refers to here :-)

Speaking of Yugadharmam, I have heard three of the four songs in that album. I was swayed by the movie title to believe that the songs would be classical or semi-classical, and guess what? The songs are just your mundane 80's filmi dappanguthu songs, unimaginative to say the least.

Vijay, I'm not hugely enthusiastic about the songs in Magalir Mattum either-- the songs sound just sketchy. I'm sure there are other DFers who will actually enjoy these songs, because even the cheesiest songs will find admirers.


Regards,
Nitya

By the by, you guys may notice that I sound less enthused about IR's new albums, posting much less than when I carried my 'purv' name. That's because I'm moving on; I'm appreciating the gems of MSV and those of Malayalam MDs like Ravindran, Ouseppachan, Devarajan, etc.

Nitya/purv

Good for you! Best of luck!
Keep us posted on Devarajan and MSV's malayalam melodies, albeit in a separate thread. :D
Meanwhile, deteriorating trend in IR's music is something enigmatic. I felt that even when he was in his peak, he used to compose 'so-so' songs for ordinary sangili murugan movies. He is a stream and sometimes it comes in torrents and in other times it comes in a trickle. We have to learn to appreciate whatever that comes. This applies to all creative personalities. Keep appreciating the best. No point in being hyper critical or hyper appreciative.

Jaiganesh,
Good points. Just like when we are critical or show our lack of enthusiasm it is important also to post positive things when you like somethings in somebody's work. Songs like niRam piriththu parthEin in time or enna solli pAduvatho have no comparable songs in other MDs work. These are a real innovation from IR. That is why I mentioned in my post that it takes IR quite a bit of time, to evolve a new style/techniques. If you listen to particular window of time, you can IR using the same techniques.

Also, I feel even if something is not fresh, IR's caliber shows in the tune itself.

BTW, a song is made up of rhythm arrangement, sandham, tune, scale/raagam and lyrics. Freshness can be brought about in any of these aspects. Usually, it is mainly the rhythm arrangment and sandham which immediately strike people as 'not-fresh'.
Sometimes, even if the first four are not fresh, just with good lyrics, one can get a song to be a hit.
In yugadharman there is one song, which is actually a version of another hit song. In magalir mattum, I think I dont have any problem with the tune or arrangment, it is mainly the lyrics which messes up. Even then there is one very good western classically orchestrated song.

Purv,
I think your inputs on new albums are highly appreciated. You mentioned the raagams of kaaragAttAkAri which helped me understand why they dont sound fresh. This is the kind of input that I think this board will appreciate.
It looks like you are very classically inclined so zero in on the scale quickly. To me sandham, rhythm arrangments, orchestration also help me appreciate a song. The malayalam MDs seem to be very good in tunes but there is orchestration skills are not to my liking. Even in achuvinte amma, the harmony notes and counterpoints are very good.

Nitya, talk about freshness and one thing comes to my mind.
In malayalam, for majority of movies all the tunes by various MDs were compulsorily carnatic based. I could hear no folk element in many movies. If at all a song would move away from carnatic base, it would be like Doordarshan Jolly abraham style of light music. I can listen to thousands of malyalam songs by Ravindran, Johnson and still find it difficult to say who composed what. They all sounded the same! This is not to mean as an insult, all songs were slow, same tempo, singers who had the same voice (KJY, Jeyachandran, MGSreekumar were all in the same sonic scale. Thank GOD we had SPB opp KJY). In fact after watching Poo vizhi vaasalile, my uncle got the film's malyalam original to see how it was in malayalam. It had mamooty for Sathyaraj , baby sujitha was the same there too, Babu Antony was there too. Two differences(barring hero). Raghuvaran and Ilayaraja. The difference was striking. I felt as if the malayalam movie had no soul! Maybe i had too much of IR in my head at that time. Still, the difference was striking in every single frame of that movie.
I felt the same when I saw 'Dolee sajaa ke rakhna" remake of Aniyathi piraavugal/Kaadhalukku Mariyaadhai. The climax was a big let down. Maybe there the trouble was also with the director, but the difference in emotional impact certainly palpable and striking. Here is a movie in whose climax scene, in a theatre, many grown up men were controlling tears, and its remake I am seeing, they are ready to run out of theatres!! Get ilayaraja a good script and a more 'visual' movie and see what he does. Why should he do 'karagaattak kaari'? Well, someone falls at your feet and begs you to compose so that some publicity could be fetched for selling the movie, what would you do? Is there anyone else who could do this 'genre' of music (village folk) ? Get someone then we can be hypercritical of his decision to score such movies.

To really please modern music fans who are happy to buy one mp3 pirated CD containing all latest songs, one music director has to have a rock number, a reggae number, one gaana/kolai kuthu , one melody enough! Movies like karagaattakari can have only one type of music, village folk songs, melody or kuthu, they have to be set in the same pattern. IR has been doing such songs for eons, just that we have moved to the pattern mentioned above. He does not compose for car stereos my friends.!

Well said jaiganesh,that was a very good post.Your comments on MFM was something very similar to what I have always felt.Every body in every industry has something called obligation which needs to be fulfilled.When you work for that&the team has given nothing to inspire you where will outstanding music come from.i don't believe IR does music for movies like 'Karagattakkari'only for money.Also he has been around for 30years,has composed for 1000+ films(I hope the figure is close to reality),it's given there will be a decline in quality.I for one never expect to see the IR of the 75-92 again.What needs to be done is evaluate his work now without comparing it to his earlier works.VirumaaNdi&Pitamagan were excellent/rousing compositions.I cannot understand how anyone could call it average.As jaiganesh rightly pointed out the diff between Kathalukku Mariyathai/Doli saja ke rakhna was Fazil/IR&Priyan/ARR.The BGM for the climax in Tamil was also one of the reasons for the tears which flooded the eyes,the other being the director.

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Keep us posted on Devarajan and MSV's malayalam melodies, albeit in a separate thread.

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Jaiganesh,
This thread may interest you:
http://www.forumhub.lunarpages.com/h...opic.php?t=875
Nitya pitches in once in a while..

kiru,
for carnatic aspects of IR,
http://www.forumhub.lunarpages.com/h...pic.php?t=1677