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Kiru and others - in connection with the topic of this thread, I wud like to share with you a very deeply insightful article written on IR's composing style and genius in a Tamil magazine 'Kanaiyaazhi' - I translated that entire article in English, but due to lack of time, cud not post it anywhere on the web - if there is anyone willing to spare time and post it on the web, I would be more than happy to send them the English translated version of the article
"The statistics here wont work out. You are comparing 1000 movies with less than 100 movies, you are comparing close to 5000 songs with less than 300 songs. "
njv, I can compare with some of IR's predecessors if you want to. They did substantial number of movies and have given a higher percentage of quality songs in the 60s.MSV's percentage would be close to 80% in the 60s and he was doing about 15-20 movies/year with 6 or 7 songs in each of them. But thats not the point. The point is about avoiding projects that dont inspire you and foscussing more time and attention on doing something that inspired you - like HTNI, NBW etc.
"You know what I hate about this forum after listening to all the discussions so far, Tamil people are thankless people. The respect Telugu and Malayalam people has for IR is more than anything to describe. "
Tamil people are obviously thankful to what IR(and other MDs have) has given them. He enjoyed maximum popularity and undisputed fame for a loong time. You dont have to worry about that. As for Malayalam and Telugu IR was far more selective there and gave a higher percentage of good songs, so maybe there's a reason they hold him in high esteem. Personally, As for TFM, IR has given plenty of uninspired products for me to ignore. Compared with the other big MDs of TFM past and present, the junk albums of IR would be far higher in number. And this is just in the late 80s. If I come to the 90s and post-millenium, the number of medicore products would only be higher.
"Ramarajan, Rajkiran and so many other directors who has no music sense go to IR and just ask him to score music and also ask IR to create scenes for songs)"
well why did he repeatedly accept their movies? whose fault it is? Did anyone force him to? On the one hand he complained that people were giving him the same situations and on the other hand he signed every movie which came his way.
Sometime you just have to do it to keep the relationship (but still ppl ditched him). If people has gratitude, they wont bother these things. Sorry that I replied to your mail to begin with.
All that we do each day do not speak of our max capabilities. To illustrate, an ace programmer may be doing an uninspiring job on an average day (like a data dump or conversion script etc.) Why? Simply because it is his job:-) IR took composing music for movies as his `well-paid' job which also brought friends, admirers and accolades...that doesn't mean each of his assigments were challenging and each of his outputs were exotic...
Pick out those special ones and enjoy...after all it is to our benefit to sift and grab the great ones and be grateful for them:-)
app_engine
well said. btw is your engine running on unix/linux. lol!
"after all it is to our benefit to sift and grab the great ones and be grateful for them"
I am "grateful" for the great songs(although it beats me as to how much one should be grateful to the MD, for the MD too depends on the fan for his survival). I am also critical of the bad ones, especially when they are large in number. I dont think being "grateful" precludes being critical and vice-versa. Apparently njv and a couple of others here are missing the main point.
vijay,
I agree with you...that being a critic at times has its own `kick':-) Enjoy!
"I agree with you...that being a critic at times has its own `kick'"
When did I say this? Yenpa ippadi solladhadhai ellam sonnengareenga? If I speak of bad songs I am conveying my own angst/frustration at those medicore products, not because it gives me any "kick". Its a question of what if. What if IR had avoided all those bad films or limited his films and concentrated more on bringing out more theme-based albums like India 24hrs, Moods of IR etc.?
Hi Guys,
One fine example for IR's beat songs would be ' ninnukkori varnam'. Just hear it using headphones. He'll take u to the heaven. One will feel that there cannot be another great music like that.
Vijay, IR might have simply taken those assignments to pay his bills :-). We need to leave it at that - everyone needs money and how much one needs is a personal decision. It might be that IR needed the money from the 50 movies per year he did for the various activities he did. Now, could he have charged more per film and taken up lesser assignments? That depends on the size of the tamil market at that time. Maybe it wasnt big enough to pay him enough for one project. Remember he wasnt commercially succesful in the money-bag market - Bollywood, which ARR is now and hence can afford to charge more per project.
Next question form you might be, having taken up these assignments, shouldnt he do justice to all equally? Now, thats again a personal thing and for all you know, IR may be genuine when he says that to him a Rasa Magan song is the same as a Thevar Magan song and it takes the same amount of effort and creativity for both. I personally dont credit that as absolute truth but for all I know, this might be his real philosophy - the creative flourishes we identify and enjoy in Devar magan may all be just spontaneous for him. On the other hand, listening to Rasa Magan situation he might have spontaneously come up with the songs he did for the latter movie.
If the latter is of lesser quality in our perception, how can he be blamed for giving less attention to the latter. In his perception, probnably he doesnt do it consciously. If that is so, it is hardly right of us to criticize that.
The needle is on the producer/director to stir his creativity so that his spontaneous output matches the quality that a discerning listener like you expects. Again, that might not be the director's intent. Again, Rajkiran might be happy with the aatha songs that DID stir a chord with the rustic audience and contributed to the run oft he movies, even though you and I may call them ordinary. So, Rajkiran has got what he wanted, the audience for his type of movies has got what they wanted, why should IR cater to you and me in those type of songs?
Next question that might eb asked is: did he not create magic like 16 Yearsile that captivated rustic audience, you and me alike?
My response is how many movies like 16 yearsinile were produced in the 90's or late 80's?
If you look closely, you will get an answer to all your questions - and definitely, as an IR watcher over the years, I will not suspect his honesty and sincerity towards his craft. It may be just that the crappy songs you and I identify were intended as a different purpose than satisfying discerning listeners like you. As a paid employee, it might have been his intention to give the crappy music demanded by that particular genre(even nattupara pattu was a hit!).
IMO, we should drop this question of %'s of good songs etc. Just enjoy his flourishes.
One more point is that a lot of telugu guys appreciate IR for songs that I,a nd people with taste similar to mine, classify as utter junk. And they have absolutely no respect for a putham pudhu kaalai or a pon maalai pozhudhu even though they are rabid fans of IR(or the IR they know). Similar with several Malayalam fans.
I think that means either IR delibereately chose his target audience for specific projects (which is an awesome achivement if he so consciously managed it) or sub-consciously, he understood the projects requirements and his spontaneous output automatically appealed to the target audience of the project(which is even more an awesome indicator of genius!)
I think it is even more difficult than producing uniform music that is appreciated across a country or the world. MJ appeals to a certain type of audience across the world but can he adapt himself to specific aduience? IR can. Infact, even ARR can. As you might want to add, MSV did. We are fortunate to have all 3 and to me these 3 along with Salil Chaudhary form an awsome foursome in Indian Film music genre.