Saarattu Vandiyila - Kaatru Veliyidai

Saarattu Vandiyila - Melody is easy, rhythm is zingy, percussive arrangement is crisp, mood is festive, the whole song is conventional, comforting and an instant ear-worm. The song is Rahman’s take on the most popular tamil folk riff “Thanna na naa dhinam, Thanna na naa dhinam, Thanna na naa dhinam, Thandhaanae”. Vairamuthu pours into the one-trick melody lots of beautiful words and phrases filled with playful imagery and innuendos. Sample this, “Avan kaigalil udayattum kanni kannadi” — the image of bride’s virginity as a brittle glass that would be broken in the hands of the groom on the wedding night. Vairamuthu’s earthy Tamil syllables have always had problems sitting comfortably on Rahman’s polished musical phrases and sophisticated production (example, purusan in Yaaro Yaarodi), but in Saarattu vandiyila marriage between the two sounds almost perfect. That final crescendo, where all the best riffs of the song come stacked in many layers, blossoming together like petals of varied colours in one flower, it makes you go “Pudhu Ponnae, Adhu dhaandi Rahmanin baani”. 

Vaan Varuvaan - Kaatru Veliyidai

Vaan Varuvaan - Here comes again, flying from above, the sound, that Rahman Sound! The sound defined not by contrapuntal layers of melodies, but by endless layers of sparkling e-sounds enmeshed together to be a carrier and a cushion for the voice, the melody and the mood. After the opening Piano chords, any hint of acoustic instrumentation in the layers underneath the melody is avoided fearing they might hurt the serenity of the central melody. Even the omnipresent flute and choir do not play or sing any definitive melody; maybe they do, but they are not allowed to be heard in its original form; a whiff of the sound, just a whiff of it, picked at a moment precisely before the basic sound dissolves into silence is used to fill the sonic canvas. Despite the seductive soundscape and Saasha’s sensuous rendition, it took a while for me to embrace Vaan Varuvaan. The first few times I heard the song, the long opening line of the melody, with  multiple “Vaan” words in succession, remained elusive. Melody sounded constrained by the monotonic words in the poetry (which isn’t a problem in the equally wonderful Telugu version “Mairmarupaa”). But, that was, only in the warm-up phase. Suddenly, when you are totally unaware, the contour of the melody reveals itself, and in that moment of Rahmanealization, Vaan Varuvaan does what every magical Rahman song does — finds a sweet little spot in our memory, digs a tiny hole, locks itself up to stay in there, forever.

Azhagiyae - Kaatru Veliyidai

Azhagiyae - Fresh as the first dew at dawn; Warm as a tight hug; Sweet as a gentle kiss on the forehead; Cute as a cream swirl-topped Cupcake; Light as a snow flake; Breezy as the ride along the coast; Beautiful as a just blossomed flower; Frothy as the tide crawling to the shore; Romantic as the twilight at dusk. 

It has been twenty five years since Roja, Maniratnam and A.R.Rahman get younger by the day and continue to churn charming, irresistible tunes. 

OK Kanmani - A.R.Rahman

Parandhu Sella Vaa. It could have been another Hai Rama Yeh Kya Hua - with its restless rhythms and raaga based melody that sounds like a song Rahman conjured for the visuals of the erotic sculptures of Khajuraho coming to life to make love. It could have been a Maja Maja Maaja (Jillunu Oru Kaadhal) or a Thazhuvudhu (Anbe Aaruyirae) loaded with tribal rhythms and many musical moments filled with incessant moaning that goes with the idea of making love as a mere carnal pleasure with no bigger emotional heft whatsoever attached to the experience. Or it could have been all about the breezy romance, the fun and froth in the moments when a couple in love live together for the first time - Kaadhal Sadugudu (Alaipayuthey). Or it could have been something that ambles between the quiet slumber and passionate crescendo like In Lamhon Ki Daaman men (Jodha Akbar). In OK Kanmani, Rahman thinks of something refreshing for the situation in question and gives us the song of the soundtrack - Parandhu Sella Vaa. He sets the experience of intense physical intimacy to the ecstasy of a bird freed of a cage after years of imprisonment and its never ending flight after that higher and higher above the clouds. Bits and pieces of musical elements from all the other aforementioned songs are in here too — a softly thudding tribal rhythm, the musical moaning, mischievous mix of voices and sounds in the backing orchestration etc, But, they come together to paint a kaleidoscopic soundscape that entirely belongs to this song and this song alone.

Song has an interesting structure. It starts off with a gentle and cheerful foreplay section, a shaker, a peck-on-the-cheek sound loop, and a melody that keeps repeating, he does something and she does the same, no one knows where all of it is leading to, but soon a gentle rhythm kicks in and sets a groove to the action implying that they have taken a step further ahead. And she takes the lead and starts moaning melodically and it is so beautiful and classical that he might reach his peak without another touch. He moans along too but his is restrained and just enough to calm and bring her a new notches down from up above. Everything takes flight to a higher emotional plane sooner when he goes Nanaindhu kollavaa Mazhai Illamalae, and to an even higher and stronger emotional plane when a deep cello section joins as she goes Midhandhu pogavaa megha thundu pol. And that is where it stays afloat on Parandhu Sella vaa, Parandhu Sella Vaa. After a phase of passionate action, they jump to a frothy, playful phase for a short while when the song shifts to the most ecstatic musical moment of the whole soundtrack. Saasha’s scat singing backed by a cute and chirpy pizzicato strings in this section gives me an indescribable high every single time I listen to the song. With Kadandhu Pogavaa Boodham Aindhayum and a grand choir backing the lines, the song shifts to the emotional plane again, and then it doesn’t end, it just stays there. Nobody is in a rush to hit the climactic orgasm. They want to fly and fly and stay afloat savouring every micro second of the experience without having to reach any pointed destination. I just like that.

Rahman’s in OK Kanmani is light music. Lightness is the overarching mood and feel and this aura of light is sometimes easily mistaken as superficial. And the lightest of all that is light in the album is Aye Sinamika. With relentlessly strummed guitars and acoustic drums, a variety of e-nstruments and the cheerful chorus interludes, the song creates an infectious positive vibe and is a bundle of joy. That everything in the song keeps circling far too long around so small a musical pivot is my only gripe, could have had a little more meat. Kara Aatakkaara also has similar problem, meanders a bit and though has many interesting parts doesn’t come together well. I can’t deny feeling disappointed when the song quickly turned to Tamil rap, because I was so hooked to the Kaara Aatakkaara section when the first teaser of the movie broke out with it, and I have been eagerly waiting to hear what comes after that.

Rahman is always after a sense of musical and conceptual balance within a song, within songs in an album and within songs of similar genre in his overall repertoire. It is in Prabhu Deva’s movies you will hear the slowest of Rahman melodies. There would always be a Mellisayae to switch from Romeo Aattam, or a Naalai Ulagam Illaiyendral to go to after No Problem, or a Ennavalae after Errani Kurradhaani. There would mostly be a carnatic section laid on club beats in most of his jaunty dance music. Thirikita Dhaana motif in Pappu Can’t Dance was to balance the crass loudness expected in a party song. The classical sargams in Yaakai Thiri was to give a musical heft to the harmless fluff in a party song. And maybe the overt carnatic flavour in OK Kanmani music is for the same reason. And in OK Kanmani too, Rahman is after a musical balance within the songs and between the songs and he is able to achieve that without it being detrimental to the core mood and musical premise of the song. Maybe I am stretching the theory too far, maybe all of its comes from what the film needs but maybe not.

There Ulaa is an interesting exercise in Rahman’s penchant for balance. The song’s structure is dangerously fragile with scattered fragments of musical phrases and long stretches of pauses in between. A listener doesn’t get anything to hold on to easily, apart from the addictive techno beat that is deliberately played on a tempo higher than that of the melody. Each and every phrase should be able to stand on its own to make the song feel tighter. And also all of it should form a sweetly melodic and sensible musical structure when the listener is able to clearly map the whole journey of these fragments of musical phrases in their mind. Rahman pulls it off like he does every time. That female solo in the middle of the song is such a beautiful carnatic crux to build the song around.

Mental Menadhail is the only straight forward peppy techno track in the album that is not bothered about being all out fluff though Rahman tries to give a softer melodic bend to all the straight edges in the melody in its female version. First time I heard the female version, felt it sounded better, but have gone back to Rahman’s version now. Somehow the female version has subdued the fun and sound inhibited compared to the freak-out Rahman’s version.

I can’t pin point to a specific aspect but there is something totally magical about Naane Varugiraen besides the obviously sweet, strong, raaga-based melody and the exquisite classical inflections in the way the syllables of the sung words are split, swirled, stretched and squeezed inside Saasha Tripathi’s seductive vocal cord. Is it the element of electronica in the backing orchestration? But that is standard ornamentation considering Rahman’s standards. Or is it the constant chase and catch drama that plays out between the melody and the percussion? And while I question all these questions on the experience of the song, Rahman points me to its telugu version Yedho Adaganaa Yedhainaa Adaganaa, and listen to it yourself to know what inherent musicality of a language does to a melody. Sundara Telugu! And so is music of A.R.Ameen’s Arabic in the calming Maula Wa Salim. Can I get a karaoke version with just the chorus to use for my meditation?

But, the question that remains after listening to each new Rahman album - Where is the surprise? Where is that never-heard-before moment? Most unexpectedly I found the answer for these two questions in Malargal Kaettaen - a very deceptively simple and conventional sounding song in the album. Listen to the path Chitra takes when she sings Unaiyae Tharuvaai the first time, it is not the route a melody usually takes when it is presenting itself for the first time, it is an improvised version, a route it takes after having gone through a conventional path for many times, but that is what we get the first time and only in the second time Unaiyae tharuvaai takes its most obvious melodic route. And the never-heard-before moment arrives when Rahman joins Chitra, and again I can’t explain why, but Rahman’s voice and the way he sings does something that nothing else could have done to the song. And only when Rahman joined that I truly understood the beauty of the melody in its entirety.

I - A.R.Rahman

It has been few years since A.R.Rahman stopped caring about new sounds in his music. Rahman’s arrangements have become straight, quite, calm and restrained. He has been concentrating on constructing quirky and unique melodic structures that he can call his own, than concocting never-heard-before sounds and instruments in the arrangements which he did quite a lot in early days of his career, and which he figured anybody is able to do these days. He is even open to making an all conventional song in all aspects and exploring if there is anything definitive that he could create in that space. I absolutely love this phase of A.R.Rahman, in which, the general opinion is that Rahman’s music isn’t exciting anymore. However, I also love that playful A.R.Rahman who spins a fine yarn with strands and threads of extremely varied musical fabrics. He does that in the breath taking Aila. A melody that seamlessly swings between Jazzy, operatic and conventionally filmy, beats that is techno which out of nowhere jumps to Punjabi somewhere in the middle, there is a serene Hindustani choir piece seamlessly seeping in an interlude — you just can’t predict what happens next in this song. A.R.Rahman at his freaking experimental best.

There is a flip side to this experimental streak when it is pushed to an extreme, out of which is born a song like Ladio. I get where this is coming from but I wish it had turned out like “Hey Hey Yenna Aachchu Unakku” instead of a “Bailamore”. I still like the Kasada Thapara hook and its variations throughout the song. The overt techno sound apart, I don’t like what I think is the main melody line of the song. When I first heard the samples of song before the audio release, I thought they mixed Radio Mirchi theme song with I song samples by mistake. I admit I hated Merasalaayittaen song when I heard it the first time, which I like now, but I don’t see that happening with Ladio ever.

With Merasalaayittaen, Rahman is playing straight to the gallery, and he badly goes after a simple, hit song, and he gets one. Due to that conventional synth hook, I thought Rahman’s being lazy and is taking an easy root, but he isn’t. Give the word Merasalaayittaen to any composer in the world, no one would have thought of musical phrase that Rahman has come up to fit the word in. The song is upbeat, but it has a neat flow of melody which wasn’t apparent to me in my first few hearings of the song. I was so worried about the simplistic, crowd pleasing arrangements, and the processed voices, that I looked away from the melody. Even the remix version is fine, where some musical layers in the original song are fleshed out and brought to fore.

Chinmayi’s Ennodu Nee Irundhaal is yin to yang that is Sid Sriram’s Ennodu Nee Irundhal. One is a straight, conventionally presented tamil film romantic duet, while other is a spectacular orchestral-rock version of the song with a grand choir following the lead voice (I like the way the chorus is mixed in the songs throughout the soundtrack) and dramatic orchestral twists and turns all the way. And just how charming is the melody of the charanam that goes Unmai Kaadhal! Vintage A.R.Rahman melody that is. And pallavi sounds like what came out of Shankar asking Rahman to retain all different melodies he tuned for the verse “Ennodu Nee Irundhal” in the song. It could have easily become monotonous, but it doesn’t, beautifully flows like one whole seamless melody.

Pookkalae Satru Oivedungal is that simple semi-classical romantic melody of every Shankar-Rahman soundtrack, using which Shankar travels to exotic locations with his lead pair and make them dance in front of most beautiful and picturesque places in the world. That Guitar motif that accompanies the main melody sounded so distracting initially, but have gotten used to it now, and gives an instant signature to the song. Both Haricharan and Shreya Ghosal exquisitely ooze the romance out of what sounds like a raaga based melody. Sweetest song of the soundtrack, and some call this song’s genre as 90s Rahman.

A.R.Rahman’s “I”- Ladio is the ugly truth, rest of I is Beauty.

Tribute to 80's Ilaiyaraaja

Heard the song from Rendavadhu Padam that is publicized as a tribute to 80's Ilaiyaraaja music. Maybe, it is. That audacious anything goes approach in the orchestration, with a wide array of instruments parading one after the other playing phrases sweet on its own and also fitting nicely in all different things happen before and after; That switching styles of music all in one interlude; That rushing string section; That quintessential triple Congos with deep drums; That omnipresent chorus; That adjoining Veenai as sweet fillers between lines; That swift to classical backing in the the second charanam; That tightness with so many musical stuff happening all the time; That one Tabla stroke midst all western percussion layers; And Of course, SPB and Chitra; and much more - Thanks a ton to Kannan and Amudhan for showing that that sound is still possible. But.

But.

Somehow, I feel Imman's Ayyayyo Aanandhamae is a much better tribute to 80's Ilaiyaraaja. That imploding energy in the most haunting of melodies, that is my key takeaway from 80's Ilaiyaraaja, which is in Ayyayo Anandhamae. It is a song, if were available at the time I wrote "Ilaiyaraaja and the Synth Myth", I wouldn't have had to think and write that piece to form and understand my stance.

Now, I want to hear Ilaiyaraaja of now paying tribute to 80's Ilaiyaraaja, at least once, just for heck of it.

Vathikuchi - M.Ghibran

Vathikuchi is a completely different soundtrack from M.Ghibran’s widely successful debut - Vaagai Sooda Vaa, and yet M.Ghibran packs same punch in this album too. There are love songs in this album as well, but there are no what I call sweetener instruments like flute, Veena, acoustic Guitars or Saxophones in here. Heavy bass, strings are always bowed or plucked in their lower registers, Trumpets, trombones and bass heavy instruments are used mostly. The idea of having a central musical idea - of having a certain raw and rough sound even in romantic songs consistently maintained throughout the soundtrack - is extremely rare to find in Tamil film soundtracks these days.

While every other composer abuses Auto tune or whatever is that technology that makes a human voice sound lifeless and robotic, Ghibran uses it in here for a purpose. When the girl ends the line singing “venaandi shape maaridum”, the last note of the phrase is stretched and its shape is deformed digitally to go in sync with the lyrics. He did this tweaking the melody to make it gel with the literal meaning of the lyrics in Vaagai Sooda Vaa as well in one of the line in Poraanae song.

The clarity in the orchestration of the songs, not very complex but totally uncluttered and none of the layer sounds like carelessly thrown in into the song. The multi layered Vocals in almost an acapella “Shopping” song is sheer brilliance. So much effort has gone into making a simple fun song.

Ghibran gets a symphony orchestra again, this time it is Macedonian symphony orchestra. Theme music pieces nowadays have become uninteresting repetitions of a tune on different instruments, it has to be done in a way Ghibran does here. There is always something that keeps changing in the main theme, the pace, instruments playing the theme, the backing, adding additional in-between notes in the main theme and such tricks and techniques to keep it alive throughout. Ghibran pays equal attention to that which happens in between the various variations of the theme, how it arrives to and how it departs from the main theme and keeps the piece extremely tight. The rock layers make it sound like a conventional Hollywood action score though. And Ah! When you hear that pizzicato version of the theme and the way it enters the piece simmering its way as a lead to the big soaring reprise of the main theme, you know that this composer knows what he is doing.

Above all, the Melodies - simple, instantly accessible, bang on the emotion they intends to invoke.

I equally enjoyed the Karaoke versions of the songs. They are not to be skipped. It helps to savor all that happens underneath the main melody, and a lot happens in the songs of this soundtrack.

Originality, clarity, brevity, accessibility – I hope what follows is popularity. And what are our film makers waiting for? Here is man, run and knock his studio doors now.

Mankatha Music Review

So, Venkat Prabhu raised a voice for Yuvan Shankar Raja in Vijay TV Awards show. I haven't watched the show yet and I don't know what exactly he said. I don't know who other nominees in Best Music Category are, so don't know if not nominating Yuvan is a mistake. I, personally, liked Mankatha music. I wrote a review last year a month after the release of the album but never posted it in the site. Now, here it is.

When was the last time in the recent past we heard a theme music for a film, which when we hear even after a decade, has the ability to instantly flash the film’s name in our mind? I don’t remember any except Yuvan Shankar Raja’s Mankatha Theme. Of course, most of Ilaiyaraaja’s films have such theme music in the background score of the film, but they aren’t part of pop culture anymore. And that part-of-pop-culture quotient is a measure of the potential of the theme to become a favorite ring tone of millions of mobile users. The entire song Vilayadu Mankatha, which was released as a single much before the entire soundtrack album of the film was released (Harris Jeyaraj’s Lesa Lesa single started this trend), is built around this theme. The catchy trumpet theme has got the power, punch and the attitude. The soundtrack album also has an instrumental Mankatha theme which is based on this trumpet theme. Yuvan Shankar Raja plays a very tricky game with listeners with this instrumental track. It begins with string section playing the first half of the main trumpet theme. That is expected. That is the way to hint at a theme. You can’t play the complete theme instantly in the very beginning of the piece. That is a nice strategy to keep the listeners interested in the piece. We anticipate that after playing enough with the notes of the first half of the melody, the composer would lead us to a satisfactory end with the theme playing in its entirety at least once at an unexpected point before the track ends. While I was waiting for the composer to surprise me, Yuvan totally surprised me by not playing the theme in its entirety until the end. And that worked too. Well done Yuvan! Strings section plays some meandering phrases of melody and intermittently half-theme is hinted and it interestingly reaches another sub-theme that is exactly same as the second interlude of the song Yaar Solli Kaadhal Vandhadhu from film Padhinaaru.

With A.R.Rahman taken an oath not to invoke even faintest of Ilaiyaraaja in his music, there is only one composer in Tamil film music, who can bring together the honey-dipped brand of melody patented by Ilaiyaraaja with orchestral layers patented by A.R.Rahman. Yuvan does that quite brilliantly in Vaada Bin Ladaa from Mankatha. The relentless Synth bass layers, the Tabla beats that becomes a pickle to main course that is Techno beats, the Veena and flute pieces with a classical tinge that glides over Synth layers are all typical A.R.Rahman elements. The melody lines, especially in Charanam, travels tastefully on Ilaiyaraaja territory. Sadly, that which we could call Yuvan elements are in the irritating voice mix that cruelly butchers the singers’ (Suchitra and Krish) performance. Yuvan – we youth are matured to understand that it is hip song even without such unnecessary assault on singer’s voices and rendition.

Melody is all. The colorful Synth, peppy innovative rhythms, hook, symphonic orchestration, exquisite singing everything would fall flat is the melody is not right. And that Yuvan gets it incredibly right in Nanbanae song from Mankatha. The innately flowing melody carries within the pain of a betrayed love and adding to the heft of the emotions and serenity of the composition is Vaali’s musical poetry, which blends as one with the sonic contours of the notes in the melody. Yuvan elegantly layers the song with a single Synth layer for rhythm, a recurring motif that is as emotionally impactful as the main melody on string section and his vocal parts that sings a consoling coda to each of the main stanzas sung by Madhusree. The subdued cry in the song demands the shrill of Madhusree’s soprano voice. However expressive and exquisite her voice may sound, listening to Tamil in her tongue is a torture. To be fair, she is far better and tried her best to deliver the lines with right diction but it just isn’t good enough. The composers site all sorts of reasons for using singers who cannot sing in Tamil properly. They are confident of their melody that they don’t mind if people don’t understand few words in the song. We miss the inherent musicality of the language that brings its own beauty to the language of music. The new Government in Tamilnadu has introduced new set of rules for a film to get Entertainment Tax exemption. I request add 5% more tax, even if one of the songs in the film has a singer singing a Tamil song with terrible diction. Gangai Amaran once said, “Just because he is composing at Night, these guys are also composing at Night”.

Venkat Prabhu always likes to have at least one song in his film with 80s Ilaiyaraaja sound and feel. That Ilaiyaraaja sound is something which Ilaiyaraaja himself, for whatever reasons, doesn’t invoke anymore in his songs. For Chennai – 600028, he asked Yuvan to compose a song similar to Edho Mogam from Kozhi Koovudhu and Yuvan made Yaaro Yaarodu Ingu Yaaro. Ilaiyaraaja’s music in 80s is characterized by live orchestration. Goa also had it share of folk songs tuned and orchestrated in typical Ilaiyaraaja style. And then there was the epic “Idhu Varai” which while sticking to the ethos of Ilaiyaraaja’s music, stands on its own as a soft rock ballad. With live drums, unadulterated acoustic guitar pieces in the interludes, live strings backing and a melody that structure of which is inspired from Ilaiyaraaja’s “En Kanmani En Kaadhalan”, “Nee Naan” is that Ilaiyaraaja type song in Venkat Prabhu’s Mankatha. Any day, this is a soothing template to have in a song. The contour of the melody is interesting but it depends a great deal on the orchestration to achieve its goal, which is good. It is difficult to sustain the melody for far too long with short phrases stacked in quick succession, but Yuvan pulls it off beautifully here. The song does finally settle down to longer phrases when Bhavatharini’s part begins and takes on a breezy melodic path until the end with the main melody sneaking in now and then.

Venkat Prabhu asks Yuvan Shankar Raja, “Yuvan, I want a song like Sarajo Samaan Nikalo”. Here it is - “Machi Open the bottle”. “I want a song in 80s Ilaiyaraaja template”. Here it is – Nee Naan. I want a theme Hip-hop song for the Youth – Here it is Vilayadu Mankatha. I want a sensuous song – Here it is “Vaada Bin Ladaa”. I want a song like “Jalsa Pannungada” with an instant hook line. Here it is – “Ballelakka”. Hook is the keyword. In contemporary Hindi film music, almost every song is written with a hook line, which gets repeated throughout the song. Even in the soundtrack CD’s back cover, the songs are titled, not with the line with which the song begins, but which the song wanders and meanders all the way to hit - the punch line, the hook. Fortunately, this isn’t a trend in Tamil Film music yet. Such songs have meandering and middling melodies that takes path leading to that one Hook line. It is the hook line that is important. Even if Tamil film music composers go for such hook phrases, the other parts of the melody are also given equal importance. Thankfully, in “Ballelakka”, the main melody is as interesting as the hook. The other most interesting aspect of the song is playing the hook with a marriage procession band. Despite being a part of Tamil Culture, we don’t find brass and rums of marriage procession band in our Tamil films songs. This is very welcome. The hook sounds even better on the trumpets of marriage procession band. When was the last time we heard a full length song in Tamil Cinema that used the format of marriage procession band? Deva’s “Vennilavae Vennilavae Vekkam yaenamma” from Kaalamellam Kaadhal Vazhgha I guess.

One can find two types of remix songs in a newly released Tamil Film soundtrack CD. It could be the remix of an old classic song or it could be the remix of the new song composed of the films’ soundtrack. I could understand the need to remix an old classic song but I don’t know why there should a song and its remix should feature in the Soundtrack CD of the film. In Hindi Films, they include such remixes before most of the time promotional videos are shot mainly shot for the remix songs. It would be played repeatedly on all Hindi film and music channels. Tamil Films are hardly promoted this way. Kamal Haasan tried promoting Nalathamayanthi with a promotional music video featuring him shot for an original song and not remix. The remix of the song from the film never feature in the film, not even in the end credits. So, I don’t understand why these songs are there in the CD. There is nothing interesting in Vilayaadu Mankatha Dance mix (by Premgi Amaran). Increase the tempo and add technical beats you get a typical remix. A dance remix is meant only for dancing and not for listening. Fair enough. I shut my case. What else could be done in a remix? Probably, it is time someone did and showed us.