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Outdated/ archaic is something I use to express MY feeling towards an album.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I agree that there are takers for every kind of music and music becomes outdated/ archaic only to individual people based on what they have listened and how much they have listened.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)