புன்னைமாறன், அருமையான தமிழில் அழகாக எழுதி எங்கள் உள்ளங்களை குளிர்விற்கிறீர்கள். ஆரவத்துடன் படிக்கிறேன், எப்பொழுதும் உங்கள் இடுகைகளை எதிர்ப்பார்க்கிறேன். மிக்க நன்றி.
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புன்னைமாறன், அருமையான தமிழில் அழகாக எழுதி எங்கள் உள்ளங்களை குளிர்விற்கிறீர்கள். ஆரவத்துடன் படிக்கிறேன், எப்பொழுதும் உங்கள் இடுகைகளை எதிர்ப்பார்க்கிறேன். மிக்க நன்றி.
Regarding Raja's various phases, one place where we can look for his changing style would be in Malayalam film music. If you check out the movies of 80s, all the songs have very similar orchestration of his Tamil songs. In the second half og 90s you can clearly see the shift in orchestration towards the synthesizer but he had kept the melodic quotient intact. Some examples are the songs from 'Oru Yathra Mozhi', 'Punnara Poo' and 'Shivamallipoove' from Friends, 'Sharadendu Paadi' and 'Varna Vrindavanam' from Kaliyoonjal. Here the melodies are distinctly different from what he gave in Tamil those days. I have a feeling that he deliberately made the melodic constructions in Tamil simpler keeping with the trend of those times (simple with respect to what he was doing earlier but complex compared to other composers of those days.) In Malayalam he still retained the same complexity, even if synth was used. The other thing that didn't change was his focus on melody when it came to Malayalam films.
Ofcourse, in case of Raja, it is not easy to come to such generic ons conclusion because this was the time that 'Kalapani' and 'Guru' happened. Inspite of all the orchestral grandeur, I feel both of them as basically melodic albums. The accent in 'Kalapani' is clearly on melody and 'Guru' is combinaion of both melody and orchestral splendour.
In short, in the Malayalam films of 90s, Raja showed how the trend of synthesizers can be harnessed in favour of melody and when opportunities arose for him to show his orchestration brillance he rose to the occassion in grand style. As usual.
I agree with Suresh. His Malayalam albums are always a cut different from his tamil. His Telugu works too, were bordered on the divide between Mass & Class and in a way, the telugu songs were predictable.Predictable in the sense of genres, not the tunes. We can clearly see if it was Chiranjeevi's songs or Raghavendra Rao's songs etc.All his telugu songs can come under one bracket, except K.Vishwanath or Vamsy's films may be. In tamil, his wings spread very widely.
But in Malayalam, his work is distinctly different from his Telugu work or Tamil work.And as Suresh rightly pointed out, the shift to Synth in Malayalam is evident in his 90s works.Even in telugu he did the same, with lot of synth work.But somehow it did mot click much (compared to the way he clicked so vibrantly in 80s) with the telugu audience.Added to that,lot of these badly made tamil films of 90s were badly dubbed into telugu (Example: Police Adhikaari, Saadhu etc), which never caught the fancy of the audience.The music too was not that great.I think thats where he lost the telugu audience.
In Malayalam however, he gave films occassionally and ensured that every film had good songs.
I am with Suresh on the revisit value of Raja songs. Except for Salilda and SD Burman, most of the Hindi old songs that used to have a pride of place in my heart have lost their lustre in terms of excellence - you still have the emotional connect but they dont appeal anymore as music. This is not true of Raja where you seem to add a layer of appreciation every time you revisit. I'd emphatically state that this is the case for me w.r.t MSV also viz a viz his peers.
MSV, Raja, Salilda - this would be my trinity of Indian film music
I dont think so, for me atleast. The works of Naushad or Madan Mohan are complete class apart and it is not plain emotional connect, but the ideas that i stumble upon even now.Quote:
Originally Posted by Plum
Naushad has squeezed the Hindustani Classical Music richness into his music in a way like no other composer did.If we want to learn nuances of Hindustani raagas and those rendition styles, his compendium serves as a good textbook.
Madan Mohan's music was sensitively melodious,something which Ilaiyaraaja himself likes.
Shankar Jaikishan's work has two distinct categories - Commercial & Artistic.A song like Aawara Hoon was commercial song that might carry only emotional connect but doesnt appear as music to me now.But "Ruk Jaa raat"(Dil Ek Mandir) still has that classy artistic dimension to it. You have already quoted SD Burman, so I dont need to elaborate on his work.
C.Ramachandra might be famous for Eena Meena Deeka,but the way he poured melancholy in songs like "Katathe hai dukh mein" (Parchaaiyaan") or the way he squeezed out "Bhaageeswari" raagam's essence in "Jaag Dard-E-Ishq" is unparalleled.Not emotional connect but musical richness.
Jaidev was another composer who never gave a substandard song. Salil Chaudhary too.
Even RD Burman.I feel sad that people today associate RD for only Dum Maro Dum or Piya Tu or Churaliya Hai. His best was even beyond them like in Khushboo, Kinaara,Manoranjan etc.
And there were lot of others, like Ghulam Mohammed, O.P.Nayyar,Anil Biswas, Hansraj Behl,Ravi who belted out sheer nuggets which were just songs for me when i was growing up but today I move beyond the nostalgia and analyze them. They have so many wonderful ideas or layers and stuff like that. Even a very little known composer Called Kanu Roy, scored for hardly dozen films may be,but beautiful songs.
For me, the revisit value of these songs is more because of musical richness rather than emotional connect. Yes, there are songs of emotional connect too,but i have outgrown all that.I discovered a good amount of music, REAL music, of these composers, in the last 10years may be, after my musical awareness began to mature.It so happened that i found many songs, that were playing in my house since i was a kid, actually did have that richness and it is not just a popular appeal or nostalgia or emotional connect.
Kilo enna vilai? :lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by kiru
no offence :)
raagas,
I understand and appreciate what you say. I guess neither Plum or I mean that other than the mentioned MDs, others are not good.
What I meant is that many of the songs I held dear I dropped off from the list of best songs as my musical awareness grew. These were replaced by newer songs. (Newer not in chronological sense but in the sense that I had heard them recently. I don't want to give examples here as it will lead us into HFM debate. ) Only in the case of few directors has the sense of awe remained and all of them are oldies except Raja. I probably have a bigger list f MDs than Plum but even then I don't think there are as many songs that remained in their unshakable position as Raja's songs have been.
raagas,
And I couldn't resist the digression. I hold Anil Biswas in very high esteem and consider him a better MD than Naushad, Shankar Jaikishen and others. Naushad's handled ragas in a very traditional way. (Many critics in fact accuse him of taking a bandish and making a song out of it.) If you wanted more imaginative usage of Raga you had to go to Anilda, Roshan or Madanmohan. As I said, this is a different debate altogether and belong to a different forum.
Suresh,
I know that neither you nor plum meant that others were not good. you both obviously have listened to others and have your favourites too. But I am also talking about songs that remained unshakeable as raja's songs have been. A song from Naushad's Amar or Anil Biswas's Taraana or Salilda's Parakh or Madan Mohan's songs hold me captive in admiration and awe, in their own dimension and degree and an IR song too does it in its own way. I dont know how, but my admiration levels for those composers' works didnt drop even after listening to IR's works. Even today,i listen to all those works by others, appreciating the musical richness/ideas/methods instead of pure nostalgic emotional connect.
And Same applies to my admiration levels for some songs that have come up in recent times, by some composers in Hindi film music or Malayalam film music or Tamil film music. Ofcourse, there are some songs like i have mentioned which might not appeal 'musically' to me,but i seldom listen to them.
raagas, Suresh has covered for me. I just mentioned those 2 names as virtually every song that I adored of them years back remain in that state. I cannot say the same of others -With Madan Mohan, the catch is that I didnt discover him at all until my early 30's. I do hold him in high esteem but still would rate SDB and Salilda higher.
As I said, it is just my preference - and I am not musical enough to articulate the reasons.
I once used to have a Mukesh cassette scraped to the last thread of tape. Cant bear to hear those songs now :-)