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KV, It's a sticky thread. As you say, since no updates, will unsticky it.
RR,
Eh? I thought it was the orchestration /rhythm which caught everyone's fancy in "Chandrabimbathin'. Or are you talking about the second interlude drumming? The tabla in the pallavi was the killer I thought.
hi RR, thanks for linking it on the top of the thread.Quote:
Originally Posted by RR
Regarding front page, well there are some 30 links listed under the heading called "NEWS" at the home page. This Genres thread is not there in that group. Just wondering why?
On the song "sanku chakraala" -
Point taken.I would rather buy Suresh’s reasoning that it caters to the director’s sensibilities or V_S’s connecting it with the dhobi ethos or plum/aakarsh’s vouch for Andra folk authenticity than the claims it is based on Saraswathi or whatever.
Plum that "thaana vandha" was not meant to be an apple to apple comparison. It was to counter the false implication that few of us are expecting some high brow kutchery stuff[gamakam etal] and followed by the "sermoning"
the musical aspect has to be diluted to make the song true to folk. For all that I may care, Raja would have simply rehashed an existing folk song for this as Suresh already hinted a KVM connection. I did get a ”heard before” feel to this song.
V_S, this song was never in my mind when I summed up my review of SRR. My mild "munumunuppu" was towards “decent” melodies in Suddhadhanyasi/Mohanam/SindhuBhairavi. Afterall, naam ellaam
“azhagi varaa” ve [ULiOasai] thangindu irukkom idhu emmathiram? I was provoked to make that harsh remark. It seems to ruffle many a feather
T, as I said, I fast forward the folk "pattu cheera" and even "dharmam saranam" and "chinnari ponnari"(a erstwhile fav) while listening to Swathi muthyam now. Hence the note on sanku chakrala. Otoh, rama kanavemiraa, I can hear any number of times. As of now, don't feel Sri Rama lera or the 3 story-moving songs are any lesser than that. My point is this is what I expect - it doesn't matter what raga these are. Your expectation seems to be different - fair enough but as I said, good lukc because it seems to me IR is more in line with my thinking than yours as of now :)
Suresh, while Iam fully with you on SriRagam vs Madhyamavathi, why do u say that for Sahana or Naattakurinji?Quote:
Originally Posted by Sureshs65
Haven't we got a classic in tfm in Sahana in the form of "paarthen sirithen" or even cming to recent times, Vidhyasagar's "poi solla Udaadhu kaNmaNi", ARR's "Ranjana Ranjana" in Paarthaale paravasam?
Even MSV has tuned the wonderful "idhu thaan mudhal raathiri"[KJY/VJ duet] in Sahana.MSV has also used Dwijavanthi, that resembles Sahaana in the "amudha thamizhil" from Madurai meeta sundarapandiyan that was a huge hit. It does baffle me why Raja never uses Sahaana . ARR used bit of Sahana only during the sax portion in the interlude of "Sahana saaral " from Sivaji. Not sure why he didnt compose for the whole song
Naatakurinji - Many Tamil folk songs are based in this ragam[paal vadiyum mugham"]. ARR's "kaNNAmoochi yenadA" predominantly employs this. Any IR's song? Not sure.
Suresh, what prayogam of these ragas does IR have reservation ? I have heard Gana ragas like Thodi, Bhairavi etc are difficult to dilute and use for film songs and that is why we have very few songs in Gana ragas.
aakarsh, that was just a jest. Nothing serious
thumburu,
Maybe I should have made myself more clear but what I meant there about Sahana and Natakurunji is not that you cannot tune in them. More that it is difficult to give lot of songs in these ragas and display variety because of their inherent structure. Ofcourse KVM gave that lovely 'pathen sirithen' which till date happens to be the best Sahana in film music. Natakurunji has been used in MKT's day ('raagathil sirandhadhu naatakurunji' goes one line in that song.) 'Kannamoochi' predominantly takes the same raga swaroopa that 'Paal Vadiyum Mugam' displays. As you say it is predominantly Naatakurunji but then wanders away.
'Sahana' is one ragam which everyone asks me as to whether there are any Raja songs in. Upon hearing a negative reply, they wonder why he hasn't composed in that ragam. I have no clue why. When he can some lovely stuff with Bilahari and Saranga. Sahana and Naatakurunji should not be hard. But then the composer has to feel the need to compose in that raga. It is very difficult to say what is running in a composer's head. In case of a composer like Raja it is almost impossible to tell :)
Raja did tune an excellent Todi in Varusham 16 ('Gangai Karai Mannanadi') though I don't think he has done a standalone song in Bhairavi. MSV has a nice Bhairavi in a Malayalam movie. The song pallavi / movie name eludes me. Similarly in Malayalam music, Raja's guru, Dakshinamurthy Swami has tune in Sahana ('Swapnangal Swapnangale) as a part of ragamalika. He has also tune a lovely Begada('innale nee oru').
Ofcourse if one of us meets Raja, I think our first request would be to ask him for a tune in Sahana :D
Actually, a cousin of mine is close to Karthikeyan and offerred to take me to Prasad studio - enaku dhaan dhairyam varala.
thumburu, I understand that these are aadhangams of a (theevira?) rasigai, but I'm curious to know if there's a solid reason to rant or if this is just a longing. Like Suresh said, if we can ask why he hasn't composed in Sahana (or ragam x or y), the negative converse (at self: huh?) should also be logical, right? As in, why should he choose these scales? This isn't some silly defense point that I'm trying to make. When you have a guy who has composed in such a wide array of ragams, either purely in one scale or weaving two or more into one composition, if we are to pick on some particular ragams not being explored, then we're just being selfish (of course, as his fans, we are entitled to that). It's like whining that Sachin isn't scoring his 100th 100 while comfortably ingoring the fact that the man already has a insane total of runs and a truck full of records to his name.
I'm not against what you're wanting to get because that's what I want as well! But I think we should rather put it like Kamal in Dasa - I'm not saying his songs in certain ragams are not there, but just saying that it'd be better if there were!
Suresh: On chandrabimbthin, the rhythm progression is strange. Not sure if it's the movie situation. If you take it out (same for many of the new age hits), I'll like this song more - but still won't be able to call it fantastic.
On vakra ragas, riti gowla will be my counter example. He was the first one to try it and since then many are using it and consistently churning out hits. Similarly desh. I have loved almost every desh that IR has tuned. He has so much innate feel of the raga, all were top class from 'vizhiyil puthu' to 'oranjaaram' to 'ennai kavarnthizhjutha'. More importantly, not giving any sign of resemblance. So vakra nature is not strictly a discouraging factor IMO. Maybe he needs some special motivation..
KV: After reading your post, I feel like I can understand Kamalhassan interviews like a baby.. :D
vel,
'News' lists only the last 50 new topics. Genre gems is kind of older I suppose. Don't worry, if it gets very active, it'll get listed as hot threads under Ir albums (left menu).
RR,
I guess we should agree to disagree on 'Chandrabimbathin'. I find the rhythm especially very funky/new/engrossing etc. Added to it is the lovely chorus, which our Shank had pointed out earlier. I personally consider this a terrific song.
Coming to vakra ragas, as a wise sage once said, "All generalizations are false, including this one". So there are bound to be exceptions. At the same time, let us take Reethigowla. If I can recall correctly Raja has given 4 songs in this raga. A very small number compared to his enormous output. 'chinna kannan', 'rama kanavemiraa', 'thalayai kuniyum' and 'meetadha oru veenai' are what I am thinking about. Of this, I would say 'rama kanavemi raa' is a sort of standard issue Reethigowla and given that it is used in a Harikatha, works well for the situation. The other three are quite unique. 'thalayai kuniyum' being quite different from 'chinna kannan'. When 'meetadha oru veenai' came out, you could clearly make out that Raja wanted to give a different flavour to RG and succeeds here. Yet the fact that he also only composed 4 songs in this raga should give us some indication that making every attempt unique (which Raja wants to do) could be a challenge.
The other MDs have successfully used RG is something I agree. Rahman in 'Mudhalvan', Vidyasagar in 'Thambi', James Vasanthan in 'Subramanyapuram'. Vidyasagar's song didn't become too popular, Rahman's song was a hit while James Vasanthan's 'kangal irandal' was a humungous hit. All three were enjoyable melodies. At the same time I would say all three were 'standard issue' RG. There was nothing unique about them. Something which made me go 'Wow, the composer has done something unique to this raga'.
Hmmm, i seriously think the only solution is IR should first consult with some chronically dissatisfied experts here before he tunes his next raga based song ....
Idhu ellam avaroda thalai ezhuthu ! Enna panni tholaikaradhu?!
He is the most unfortunate musician i would say who has to put up with a grossly thankless audience , even after doing so much for music in all these years.
While people have limited options to turn to (except often to IR) for their intellectually stimulating wishlists, they tend to forget that beggars cant be chosers ! For example, the jazz music played before the Raaja concert did not appeal to me at all, but i fell in love with IR's monkey chatter theme music from mumbai express right from the first hearing. What to do, no one else comes this close to engaging the audience. Such is his golden expertise / USP in making the music connect with us. Since there has never been any competition to him in the innovation aspect, he can afford to take his sweet time to innovate at a pace that he decides.
We should first learn to take more time to find out and learn what IR has done and not be superficially dismissive just to look cool or to be seen as a tough critic !
Vel,
I think this process started when people realized that Raja was not invincible. (According to me he is still invincible musically but I talking commercial success here.) I guess lot of fans in the 90s thought he will mount a very serious challenge and ensure he keeps the throne. Unfortunately for them it did not happen and Rahman became a great commercial success displacing Raja. That subconsciously makes lot of people to stick to the 80s and proclaim that what was provided at the time is enough.
Secondly, I think lot of Raja fans (consciously or subconsciously) were taken in by the new sounds of Rahman and his new tunes. So much so that they thought Raja will also tune like that in order to be in tune with the times. But Raja did not do that and his music, at that time, in front of the newly glowing and lovingly recorded music, was sounding dated. I am not putting this forth as a theory but speaking from my own experience. Today I may be embarrassed to say it but during those days, even the music of 'Avatharam' and 'Raman Abdullah' "was OK but not upto the standard of the those days" in my thinking. in a way many probably felt 'betrayed' by Raja, because he did not sound 'modern' enough.
The third angle is the converse of the second. In case of certain fans, they thought Raja will counter Rahman by falling back to his earlier days. They thought he will come up with tunes in newer ragas, or use the manual orchestra more, never give up on SPB/KJY/Janaki and stuff like that. In other words, they thought Raja will create the 80s once again and that will defeat Rahman. Raja went in exactly the opposite direction. He started using synth, the manual orchestra was not used too often, his tunes didn't resemble his 80s tunes and he started using the more 'modern' singers like Hariharan and Unni Krishnan and 'gave up' SPB and Janaki. The synth did not sound as good as Rahman's did, the recording quality was not too great and many synth effects were outdated. All this added to many of the people becoming disillusioned and falling back on 'nothing like live instruments' and 'if there is even one synth beat, your song is bad' mode. If you understand this, you can understand why it is only Raja's fans who crib so much about his synth usage. No one cribs when the same synth is used by Rahman, Harris or Yuvan. I have seen many Raja fans enjoy songs of Rahman, Harris or Yuvan which are heavily synth based but they cannot take it when Raja uses it. To them it showcases the fact that Raja is not as good as Rahman in this aspect. The tragedy here is, if people were to observe carefully, especially Raja's Malayalam songs of the 90s and early 2000s, they can realize that he had zoomed far ahead in exploring the potential of the synth and has used it in multifarious ways. Ravi Natarajan had a nice series on Raja's synth usage and if people read it they may get some insights into it.
What people do not realize is that Raja himself has not been perturbed (musically) by these changes. Of course you can ask me, how do I know? I know nothing about Raja personally so I can only conclude this from his music. The only allowance that Raja made for the 'challenge' was the use of synthesizer. Recently I have been hearing lots of his post 1992 songs and one thing I notice is that nowhere are there any gimmicks. If someone were responding to a challenge and is desperate, it will show in his / her art. It doesn't show in Raja's music. As Rajasaranam says always and which Plum mentioned recently, Raja started being true to the director's vision and his music always followed that to the T. So when a 'Kalapani' came which needed a grand score, it got it. Whereas a V Shekar film like 'Vietnam Colony' got the subdued music which the film needed. 'Guru' got a score of epic proportions whereas a 'Karagattakari' got the folk is required. All the while Raja was sticking to his musical principles and his understanding of music vis a vis the movie and not vis a vis the music business. Even today he sticks to the same theory. For him, film music meant both the parts were integrated, film with music and not film 'and' music.
Additionally Raja was also moving forward. While I am not a great fan of some of his synth usage in Tamil films, I am big fan of how he used synth in Malayalam movies, 'sharadendhu paadi', 'manjulum raathi matram','virahamay', 'punnara poo', 'sivamallipoove', 'arudhe arudhe' etc showed how synth can be used to touch you. All these songs were in the 90s and each one touches you deeply. The 90s also see him work more with tunes where the orchestration is minimal, letting many a times the tune carry the whole song. After this came the phase where he started getting more and more interested in jazz which resulted in newer modes of music from him. As I have I always claimed, he has been updating himself and moving along. 'Virumandi', 'Mumbai Express', 'Pitamagan', 'Tiruvasagam', 'Pazhassi Raja'. Just check out how 'Virumandi' was. How can a MD, who all his life has been giving folk music, come up with something like 'Virumandi', which sounds so very different from what was done earlier. When the 'Ilangathu veesude' was played during Raja's recently live show, the person sitting next to me said, "How can man come up with such a tune, which has no trace of any song he did earlier and yet bear his unmistakable mark?" Shows how much Raja was working to keep things fresh and not to get nostalgic about his past.
The case of Raja's fans and their reaction, short term and long term, to his loss in popularity is something which can take a full PhD to do. The relationship between Raja and his fans is a complex ones and the fan base is also varied. Ranging from those who actively hate him but cannot do without his music all the way to fans who have always believed in him (like Rajasaranam) and those in between like me, who for a few years thought he was gone but realized that he never went off. It was our musical taste which changed a bit and after having listened to other types of music, I now love Raja even more. I have come to realize Raja will never want to be a man of the past. He wants to be a man of the present, always exploring newer avenues. I am happy for that and applaud it whenever I can.
So we shouldn't be too upset that there are people who now demand so many things from Raja. As Kamal said, we don't demand it from other MDs. We do it from Raja, because we know only he can deliver that!!!
Suresh & Others :
Just for record : that IR has given some Sahana short piece in the Harischandra kadhai in "Thunai Iruppal meenatchi" alongwith Thodi etc. if I remember correct.
CSR
[QUOTE=Sureshs65;798580]thumburu,
Maybe I should have made myself more clear but what I meant there about Sahana and Natakurunji is not that you cannot tune in them. More that it is difficult to give lot of songs in these ragas and display variety because of their inherent structure. Ofcourse KVM gave that lovely 'pathen sirithen' which till date happens to be the best Sahana in film music. Natakurunji has been used in MKT's day ('raagathil sirandhadhu naatakurunji' goes one line in that song.) 'Kannamoochi' predominantly takes the same raga swaroopa that 'Paal Vadiyum Mugam' displays. As you say it is predominantly Naatakurunji but then wanders away.
Suresh, I do see a point in yours. As you guess, Raja might have wanted to bye-pass Sahana as he might have felt certain swara sequence could be repetitive or could give away too much of the raga feature for a film song or like what IR always tells, doen't predetermine the ragam and just composes whatever tune comes to him naturally or not motivated enough to excel a benchmark of a song already existing[parthen sirithen] or plain, exercising his creator's liberty of not taking a fancy to the ragam. I was only showing a surprise , Raja bring the only TFM MD to have touched upon most number of ragas, more so,even the most uncommon in fim music like Gowlai, Rasikapriya, Kedharam etc .
I have already told this many times in this forum, I have a weakness for Raja's Shanmugapriya and can't seem to have enough of them.Along the melodic lines of "mazhai varuvadhu mayilukku theriyum" or "thamthana thamthana" or "rathiri neram rayiladi oram", I would like a few more from him in future.
KV, rant I did, few years before in this very forum. Not now. Read my post again . I used the word "mild" disappointment akin "Adhangam". Honestly I don't expect too much from Raja now a days. I had already attributed the cruel age factor, much to Sureshji's chagrin :)
KV Quote :
" I'm not saying his songs in certain ragams are not there, but just saying that it'd be better if there were! "
- Perfectly said. Agreed.
thumburu,
:) As you know I neither buy the age argument nor have I given up on his music. I still expect a lot more from him. And I am sure he will deliver :) 'Snehaveedu' was a stunner and I am sure there will be more in the coming days.
Great post Sureshji, especially the Ph.D part about the psychology of IRFs :lol2:
Add another category :Quote:
Ranging from those who actively hate him but cannot do without his music all the way to fans who have always believed in him (like Rajasaranam) and those in between like me, who for a few years thought he was gone but realized that he never went off.
Those who always "selectively" appreciated IR's music -loving some, liking some and showing no interest in some- and never rated any successors greater regardless of the commercial ups/downs :-)
Analyzing a little bit of this group's psychology, I would say that they're typically not rAgA-knowledgeable, some sound-knowledgeable (or know a little bit about instruments, notes, pitch, tune, tempo etc) and are more influenced by the "sensation-stimuli" phenomena than scientific / mathematic analysis stuff. That way, their own personal life situations (padippu, kalyANam / kudumbam, job, relocation, peers) influence the musical sensation to a great extent than even the absolute quality of the stimulus :-)
To correct Suresh's post a little..
Vietnam Colony was not by V.Shekar - it was by Santhana barathi (i think - but definitely not V.Shekar).
The only theory in defense of Raaja, I am putting up here is probably this..
Theory: He feels that he has done all he could in the area of carnatic - where very few ppl take notice of what has been done and whatever you have to do cannot be presented successfully without the right singers. Plus there needs to be a script that needs heavy duty carnatic exploration and everyone here knows that there havent been any worth remembering in the recent times on that subject. On the WCM front - we have enough evidence to fill up a room on what he has done - his diminishing size of orchestra not withstanding. Early days of financial stress, he used synth to try out some of his experiments. I mean, synth - might not be all that ear catching, yet had all the layers intact with the notes and counterpoints and stuff like that. With the right project, one even got to hear the right balance of carnatic-WCM-Jazz blend with enough stuff of experimentation - Case in point being a movie like Ajanthaa - which was mostly done by B-listers, yet the subject of music troupe fired him up enough. So one can expand on this topic in a more general tone as why are we not making any music related movies anymore instead of blaming raaja for not trying out raagas - I mean thiraipaadal collection has a raaga collection of raaja and it very much includes some of the late 90s songs as well.. probably it is upon us to see post 2000 and catalogue - before blaming raaja for lack of variety. That way we can discover more hidden gems as well as come to a conclusion instead of trying to generalize a composer's output, which many of us have "labelled" "outdated", "lack lustre" etc., - how many of us even gave a proper listening to it?
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Plum
I know Lakshminarayanan (of CI fame) once met him personally to talk, and he did but he could only listen to him calmly :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by RR
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..
Suresh, I know.. we already agreed to disagree. :) So, both are not trying to convince the other party. At least I was not. ;) Just expressing our perspectives more clearly. Two points:
i) I liked both 'ennai thaalatta' and 'thendral vandhu' songs but not the albums. To be more specific, not even the bhava version 'ithu sangeetha'.
ii) Genre is a key point of mine. What is 'good' or not critically hinges on that. I am only talking about film music genre, and here what's good is clear according to the parameters I specified. And, accordingly snehaveedu can only be called good - not excellent.
Pls don't bring harris, etc into the topic. That'll be an insult..
RR,
Again, we will agree to disagree on the parameters of the 'film genre' as well. I do hold that 'good' and 'popular' need not be synonymous. They were in South Indian film music but not a necessity. And yes, 'Snehaveedu', according to all my parameters is a top class album. With that I too will rest my case. (Atleast till I see the next post :D )
.. and I got in Harris because he is 'popular', 'catchy', liked by a lot of people and is being heard in the tea kadais :)
Come to think of it, there are more 'coffee shops' than tea kadais now and Raaja is kinda outdated for them (yo dude! Raajuh? whadya talkin! Play some kewl stuff, man!) And for the smaller town tea kadais, he's possibly become too modern! Raaja fans maadhiriye avarum ingittum illa anguttum illa nu aaitaaru. :grin:
Plum, your offer's way too tempting, but like the others, manasula heavvya beedhi. Nonetheless, I'd still want to meet him personally, at least once. I'd probably make a fool of myself in his presence, but the 'moment' would surely be something to cherish, I'm quite sure.
Jai, your approach actually sounds interesting, I'm game for it (ennoda aragora tekkinikki-a vechchu). I really don't know how fruitful the effort would be, but one can bet that we'll end up unearthing some lesser heard numbers in the process. That itself would be worth the time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RR
RR, neenga kids'nnu sollumbodhe vayasu slightį theriyudhu... :-)
Anyways, all is well ! As i said, having disruptive members on board is a good management practise !!
Your parameters are still unclear, but let's take a brether.
guys, pls throw in another 'chandrabimbathin' and let's dissect it..
@RR - nicely generalized - but pls move it to a diff. thread - when we are talking about raaga choices, lets stick to just them - coz this thread by the very definition says "Raaga choices" - not "popularity measure" .
as regards to that - nembave discus panniyaachu. It needs to be seen along with the trends in taste and preference changes in a mass market segment - MBA case study evanaachum pannuvaan adhula..
Jai,
I want to start a thread on Raja's 90s song, rarely heard ones. I did put out around 80 songs on twitter before work pressure overtook me. Will start this here after some time. I don't want to restrict it only to raga choices there but we can discuss ragas when it is relevant.
That is very sensible Suresh....we can change the thread title to IR's Composing Methods and Raga/Genres (post 90s).Quote:
Originally Posted by Sureshs65
http://www.musicplug.in/multiple_son...am&page=movies
Kolusu konjum Raagam from Chinna durai , it is popular, I remembered hearing during some India trip early 2000.
It is the same tune as kaadhal vaaniley... or mayilaadum solai......or kaalaiyil kettadhu koyil mani...... etc..sudhdha dhanyasi.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5r5H5VMtTM
S.P.Bala's voice in the similiar tune.....:-D, makes me giddy!
vinatha.