IR's composing technique

[vijayr]

" but don't understand the glass is 'half-empty' logic."

well, I see that the glass is half-full and half-empty at the same time, thats the problem Its just that if you are a Sachin fan, you want to see him score less ducks and single-digit figures than other biggies.

[mythila]

thumburu, thanks for listing most of the melodies of 1987. I think your list is mostly not debatable. But you have missed some of my favourites from "Iniya uravu poothadhu" - "chikkendra aadaiyil "(Jane Fonda overlapped aerobic song) and "enge enge".
36 good numbers for a year cannot be just 20% as what vijayr has put. And going by mere percentage is misleading. It makes 36 good songs out of 100 songs per year equal to somebody who could just compose 4 good songs out of 10 total songs for a year. Probably hits wise , it might not be a good year for IR. I think Chandrabose's Manidhan, Shankar Guru etc topped the charts.
M4ever, I tend to agree with you regarding the competition part. But MSV could have been a threat only for IR's initial 2 to 3 years. He stopped being a force to reckon with after NinithaalInikkum. It was SG who was in a neck to neck race with IR during late 70's and early eighties. IR had no other option but to experiment . Contrary to what vijayr says, IR enjoyed the maximum commercial hits only in the 1985-1992 period and not much during early 80's or late 70's. SG was equally, if not more prolific than IR . Some of his hits includes "palaivanacholai", "aaniver", "Neeya", "vandi chakkaram", "nakshathram", "vidhi", "aatukkara alamelu", "kanni paruvathile", "moondru mugam" and it is a long list. IR's best works lke "kallukkuL eeram", "nenjathai killaadhe", "johnny", "niram maradha pookaL" , "Nandu" etc were only patronized by the musically discerning crowd and not the mass.

[rajdes]

Vijay, I dont even need the MSV list . I have listened to a good many numbers from 1950's to 70's and have a deep respect for MSV specifically, even in comparison to his contemporaries.
It is just that let's not hang IR for his ,say,80% duds(exaggerating beyond the tolerance limit) in 1980's without knowing how many duds MSV produced in 1950's and 1960's(just for comparison, it could easily be SD Burman or even Veda!).
I mean, you know about Per sollum Pillai and Aalapirnadhavan because you were around when they were released. Just consider 20 years later, how is a Vijay of future going to judge IR. He is probably going to listen to NN, Agni *, Moondram Pirai etc and conclude that of the 100 IR songs he heard, 70 were good. So IR must have had 70% consistency - hope you get my point.

Who is to say MSV or any other MD didnt have his own aalapirandhavan or Pickpocket in the 1960's?

And yes, my question still stands:
How many films do you think MSV has done? How many songs?
How many of these do you think are good(an estimate)?
That would establish your stand and I think there shouldnt pretty much be any argument after that.

[mythila]

ShankarGanesh used to quickly implement whatever IR did.
Kanni paruvathiley was a reply to 16 vayadhinile
Sivappu malli to KaN sivandhaal maN sivakkum. If IR used Naatai scale with western blend in "panivizhum malarvanam", SG used the same scale with western blend in the song "santhana punnagai minnidum " from NadodiRaja soon. SG also had the kadai kaN paarvai of Vairamuthu for palaivanacholai, Amma and many,
There were also times when SG actually overtook IR in terms of mass hits during early 80's . For IR , who was on his way to the top, SG factor might have pushed him to heights of creativity.

[thumburu]

mythila, welcome
rajdes, I completely agree with you. When proper list is not available for IR's predecessors, it is not fair to compare based on percentage. The elders in my family used to rave the quality of 30's and 40's era when legends like SVVenkatraman, GRamanathan, SMSubbiahNaidu were composing and the likes of GNB, MSSubbalakshmi, NCVasanthakokilam, MKT, PUChinnappa were singing. If you ask them, they say mediocrity in TFM crept in only after VR era, and that is when our films began dialogs laden and actors who cannot sing but can speak well, gained prominence. Generally music played a second fiddle to lyrics whereas you know here in TFMPage, it is almost a sacrilege to criticize the VR era. But Iam thankful for our radios as they took the onerous task of segregating the chaff and gave mostly the good melodies.What one sees in the pazhaiya paadal pakkam are normally only the good ones which avid old music lovers remember from hearing thru the radios. Hardly anybody would remember the duds. Iam convinced there must be sizeable black sheep in the bye gone era too. I have read Kalki's film music reviews in kalki magazine's "Amarar Kalki ninaivu pakkangal" . You can see that he has given scathing reviews for few of VR's block busters like "kudiyirundha kovil", "Ragasiya Police 115" , "Kumari Kottam". He has repeatedly lamented about the slow death of classical music in TFM.[It is understandable as he is the one who has penned lyrics for classics like "Meera" , "Sevasadhanam" etc.] . So if you start looking from a music connoisseur like Kalki's point, there were lot of craps even in the 50's and 60's.

[thumburu]

rajdes, moreover, Iam fairly familiar with 70's as I don't miss any 70's film shown on the TV. Early 70's was when MSV was the undisputed king of TFM with TKR biting the dust. One need not strain to look for bad elements only from late 70's. MSV has given lot of duds even during his peak period which could outdo IR's. Films like "thalai prasavam", "Manipayal", "Paadhugaappu", " Needhi" , "Ninaithadhai mudippavan" , "Engal kula deivam", etc. Even mega hit movies like Raja, "Sirithu vaazha vendum" , Bharatha vilas, Urimai kural etc had just only one song even worthy of mention. Radios used to play only that one single good song like "konja neram ennai marandhen" of "Sirithu vaazha vendum" or "vizhiye kadhai yezhudu" from "Urimai Kural". Who cares to even remember the rest of the craps like "mera naam abdul rehmaan" or "ponna porandha aambillai kitta " .
Everybody remembers only the lone hit song "malare kurinji malare" from Dr.Shiva. Do they care to know the other junk songs in that movie? Only a sridhar' or KB or few high profile MGR starrer like USV could guarantee a good album from MSV during his peak. Add the compulsory obscene cabaret numbers from LRE which unfailingly featured in every other movie . But this paucity of melodies from MSV was to some extent compensated by MD'S from neighbouring states like GKV, Vijayabhaskar, Devarajan, a very rare Salilda.

[vijayr]

SG being a competition to IR?!! Good joke. Anyways we proved earlier that IR's quality isnt affected as much by cometition. If it did he must have had innumerable classics between 1992-95.

"36 good numbers for a year cannot be just 20% as what vijayr has put. "

Mythila, yes it is. IR did about 30-40 movies a year totalling around 150-175 songs. Now you do the math. And even amongst those 36 songs, a lot of songs are just decent or above average. They are not duds, period.

"R's best works lke "kallukkuL eeram", "nenjathai killaadhe", "johnny", "niram maradha pookaL" , "Nandu" etc were only patronized by the musically discerning crowd and not the mass."

again not true. Just for argument sake we shouldnt twist facts. IR became a big factor by 1982 only because his earlier albums were big hits, starting with AnnakiLi. Payanangal mudivadhillai, for instance, was a super duper hit and had platinum discs.


thumburu, MSV's output after 1976 or 77 is comparable to that of IR's after 1995. But we are talking about their peak periods, the 60s and 80s. In the late 50s/60s you wont find many duds like how you could find in the late 80s.

"It is just that let's not hang IR for his ,say,80% duds(exaggerating beyond the tolerance limit) in 1980's without knowing how many duds MSV produced in 1950's and 1960's(just for comparison, it could easily be SD Burman or even Veda!). "

Rajdes, I stand by duds theory. Suffice to say that it was a large percentage, somewhere between 50 and 80% as we go year by year between 1987 and 92. Not that the balance were all classics. Many of them were average and I have been kind enough not to include them along with the duds Anyways MSV's duds in the 60s have little bearing on IR's in the late 80s. I am not exaggerating, I am looking at the facts.Even if we dig out a few duds from the 60s, that not going to change IR's bad songs list, does it?


Rajdes, in my estimate the number of albums could be 400-500. There were quite a few albums he did in the 50s. In the 60s, it should be around 160-200 albums with a 10-20% dhandams at most. That was his peak period, 1958-70.
This is probably a partial list from PPP
http://www.tfmpage.com/ppp/msv_des.html
have to click on both links for albums before and after 65.

[vijayr]

"Just consider 20 years later, how is a Vijay of future going to judge IR. He is probably going to listen to NN, Agni *, Moondram Pirai etc and conclude that of the 100 IR songs he heard, 70 were good. So IR must have had 70% consistency - hope you get my point. "

rajdes, true, thats why we are still fans because we listen only to those goodies and forget the bad ones. I cant remember the bad songs to list them. I am not about to hang IR for the 100-0dd average or bad songs in 1987. My angst is that he could have reduced that number. It was in his hands entirely and he didnt limit his choice of films. 35 good songs in a year sounds like a nice big number but is somewhat tarnished by the 100 other average-to-junk songs. Even MSV wouldnt have given more than 25-30 good songs in a year in the late 60s, but he succeeded in limiting the number of dhandams by not doing 40 films/year. (he did it later on in the late 70s after IR's advent. thumburu seems to remember MSV's bad films better )

[rajdes]

vijay,
I have absolutely no problems with your opinions. I am not even into the numbers business except for the fact that I am counting the absolute no. of goodies provided by IR in comparison to others(the judgement here is mine) and stop there.
The junkies will soon vanish into obscurity and as I said, IR will acuqire a MSV-ish Halo for a Vijay of the future generation. Which is where he scores.

IMO, this is all unnecessary detail into the enjoyment of his music. I*just*dont*care*about*his*junk*songs.

Why he did them is beyond us to speculate?Could be a hundred reasons and probably valid practical reasons. We just cant comment on that from an idealistic point of view.
Despite his obvious Musical genius, IR didnt choose to put his professional life above personal life so he might have had simple financial compulsions in agreeing to junk movies. I dont see a problem with that even if he didnt oproduce great music fo these - that is definitely not lack of professionalism. He has been clear about his philospohy - "What comes spontaneously to me is what will be delivered. "
If there are producers willing to take that, fine. He sold his talent for uppu,puli,molaga. So what? In the process, even if 20 our of 100 songs were good, we should be happy. I will not think about the 80 he did for his pozhaippu.

Surely, Kamal etc got good music because at the outset, they were clear that they dont want just any song from him - If you listen to Guna composition(however setup that sounds) session in the cassette, Kamal approaches with a clear cut definition of what he wants down to the "tak tak sound " of ceiling fan. Obviously, he will get a better product than Ramarajan who says "anne , edho paarthu pottu kdunga".

If I am a vendor, and you are a client, what you ask is what you will get. I will not produce extra features unless you specifically ask me and pay me for it. THIS IS PROFESSIONALISM.

I think we have to agree to disagree if you have contrary opinions

[Music4Ever]

"Who cares to even remember the rest of the craps like "mera naam abdul rehmaan" or "ponna porandha aambillai kitta " "

A quick reply for now (There is so much to read and reply in this thread!). Interesting to note that the poNNA pirandhA number is crap to some. According to me it is a very good song. However, since we are into attacking MDs based on our perception of good/bad songs, that should be OK, I guess

Mythila's observation seems to be correct. IR had probably more to fear from SG than MSV as far BO record went. However, it is safe to conjecture that it was MSV he regarded as his equal/superior. Beating MSV must have given him most satisfaction. This is somewhat analogous to ARR vs IR. Even though Deva/VS are good composers, ARR must have gotten lot of satisfaction in going one-up over IR in the nineties.

Kiru, you are correct, I felt that the Chella piLLai song was somewhat reminicent of MSV or other MDs of his era. Hats off to IR for that song.

Finally, after much introspection, it seems somewhat uncharitable to criticize IR for his possible higher duds percentage, considering that he has given a far higher number of quality songs compared to any other MD. The theory that music springs spontaneously out of him has serious merit, IMO. Because of this producers and directors probably begged him to compose for their films, which IR couldn't refuse.