This time the influence is subtler, but it is obvious the Black Eyed Peas listen to their fair share of Desi music.
This is their new single - Don’t Phunk with my Heart. Check out the intro that is totally lifted from Yeh Mera Dil from Don. And I’m sure the beats are also just a resynthesized, more “funked up” version of the original. Though not as blatant as their previous inspiration, the BEP seem to be getting some mileage from our 70s-80s music.
While AR Rahman is off testing international waters, Tamil moviemakers loyal to him are faced with the dilemma of having to choose from the set of second-tier composers available to them. Thus, Shankar was probably left with Yuvan, Vidyasagar & Harris Jeyaraj and he decided to go with the best Rahman clone in the lot. HJ has come up with 5 songs for this album, not including the mandatory Theme music.
While I labor through the album, I’ll also try to guess which song matches the song locales described by Shankar on the Anniyan website. Just for kicks.
[sic]We have painted 350 houses beautifully in ThenKasi for a song. We have shot a song in Malaysian Airport for the First Time. We have conducted a Carnatic Cutcheri - Almost people would feel the Thiruvaiaru Cutcheri Festival while viewing that song. [/sic]
XL Recordings had this invitation for remix enthusiasts to come up with their mixes using acapella versions of 3 M.I.A. songs. The first batch of uploads are on the site. Check it out!
I should’ve seen this earlier, but for anyone going to be up early tomorrow ;), you can still catch her hoppity-hop Galang video on MTV tomorrow.
OR.
Just watch it from here.
This is in no way, a review. Rather, consider it a warning.
I really wanted to write “Spoilers Ahead”, but trust me, 2 minutes into the movie and you can start typing the script alongwith the movie. In fact, you might even come up with a better version. Something with a premise other than “Blind Girl, Old man with Alzheimers, and don’t forget the ham”.
In possibly the worst performance in recent times by an actor in a serious role, Amitabh Bachchan hammed his way to almost giving me an aneurysm before the movie was even 15 mins old. And this, while I was still trying to figure out which century the movie was being set in, and/or if I had accidentally messed up the DVD Audio setup and changed it to English. Cos’ you see, Amitabh had been dealing out one cheesy English line after the other, Pacino style, while contorting his face like a constipated monkey. Apparently, his character was supposed to be “eccentric” and this was his way of portraying it.
Sneak preview of one of the songs from Anniyan.
You’d have thunk Harris Jeyaraj would have completely revamped his act for Shankar. But it sounds like any of his other songs. In fact, not just the style, even the tune took familiar HJ turns once in a while. Hopefully, the rest of the album will make up for this.
Edit:
Original Link - Kaadhal Yaanai
OR
Mirror 1
Mirror 2
Update: All songs now available from the first link above.
Couple of Eminem/Fred Durst-looking teenagers showed up on my front door a few weeks back. You know, the cap worn backwards, weird chains around the neck, letter jackets and pants threatening to dislodge from the waists any moment. Apparently they wanted to sign me up for some magazine subscription program.
“But I already pay my dues to the magazine industry, ” I said and took a step back to close the door.
“But this is for a good cause, man. You sign up for this and blah-bleh-blook, your contribution goes to the Sacred Heart hospital.”
I didn’t need to hear all that gibberish again, so I nodded and said, “Hmm…so how much do I need to pay?”
Two days without the Internet (thanks for nothing, Comcast!) helped me catch up on a long list of movies and indulge in some cut&paste music.
I was listening (yet) again to M.I.A.’s Arular album and during the final minute of the Arular version of the M.I.A. song, was inspired enough to come up with a small ditty to layer on top of the song. So I jotted down some lyrics with the usual cliches (nila, malar etc.) and with my able CoolEdit Pro, cut the song, then played a short melody, recorded some vocals and ended up with the following layered version.
What I won’t give for another Rahman or Raja to save the Tamil industry from what is obviously a freefall into mediocrity. Clueless morons like Devi Sri Prasad, who would’ve once just seemed adequate for a latter-day, unfunny Pandiyarajan movie, has now composed for two mainstream movies in the past few months. While I’m not going to review either Maayavi or Sachin, which I consider an incredible waste of time, I did feel the need to vent my frustration at having had to listen to songs devoid of any hint of musical ability. Songs born from an unholy alliance of hackneyed tunes, hastily mish-mashed rhythms, non-existent orchestration and sometimes horrid singers. Songs that would give the talentless MDs up in Bollywood an instant superiority complex.
If history has taught Tamil Film Music followers anything, it’s that the Music gods have never let us down for a good 40 years. So, here’s hoping that this is just a temporary phase and that the next MSV, Raja or Rahman is already honing his talents to soon deliver us from this onslaught of half-baked musicians.
Excerpt from the excerpt:
“MJ Simpson, who has ‘been studying and documenting the life and career of Douglas Adams for more than 20 years’, has written a very in-depth review and plot analysis of the Hitchhiker’s movie.
At the time of making this post, the detailed/short review pages are not available. But a comment posted for the Slashdot post reveals what the review might have had to say.
“Really bad”
“vastly, staggeringly, jaw-droppingly bad”
“bad on a big scale”
“bad on a small scale”
“staggeringly unfunny”
“unfunny, pointless crap”
“an abomination”
“amazingly, mindbogglingly awful”
“a terrible, terrible film”
Now, THAT is a letdown!
or ‘One Way to Rid Yourself of Boredom in Madras while on Vacation’. [ Imported from my extinct Fandangle blog]
As a returning native after 3 long years, I found interesting conversation hard to come by. The sisters ganged up as usual & left me alone as they went on their secret shopping trips, while my nephew & niece pretty much ignored me. What friends I had left in town were either working or again, just ignoring me. My parents, as much as I love them, soon took to lecturing me on the glory of fruits&vegetables and what constituted a decent hairstyle. I didn’t enjoy it back in the 80s and I was not going to endure it now. And thus my search for company led me outside of the house and to my designated chauffeurs for the month - the auto drivers of Madras.
I was back at the local hospital today to drop off my CT Scans, those confusing films of my anatomy splattered in gray scale. My task accomplished in under a minute, I was headed back to the elevator just in time to see the door slowly closing on the smiling faces of a doctor & two other people engaged in, what I assume, was a fun coversation. Just then I also happened to notice a nurse standing outside the door, behind a wheelchair carrying an extremely old (& angelic looking) woman yelling, “Patients first, Patients first”. Too late though. The elevator was already on its way down. She then turned to me with a hapless look and repeated, “Patients first…they know that”. I shook my head and said, “Maybe you ought to put up a notice by the elevator which said that”. And she replied, “No, I mean, we all had to take a training course called Patients First, and I know that doctor took it too”.
I’m not sure what is more sad. That doctors had to take a course to know that patients came first, or that the doctor in question decided to ignore what he had learnt only recently. Either way, I hope to God I’m not stuck with that asshole outside an elevator with my life hanging by a thread. That would be a sad way to go.
Watched the US edition of The Office today on NBC. Ricky Gervais & Stephen Merchant might be Exec. Producers, but it was still painful to watch. So I join the thousands of faithfuls of the original and offer my puke to the sorry imitation.
Mumbai Express: Heard the songs yesterday and let’s just say, if I wrote a review based on first impressions, it would just be “Why Raja, Why?”. Hopefully it’ll get better on further listening. Hopefully.
Update: April 22nd - It did get better and I realize I’m not qualified to write a worthy review about the intricacies of the album.
HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray: Maybe they’ll all get along after all (from The Digital Bits) and save HDTV owners from future trauma.
Mass: Saw the smash hit Telugu movie and was left wondering if the title was also a sly reference to the overweight heroines (Jothika & Charmi). The best part of the movie is during credits where they showed outtakes of the heroines falling during dance sequences, clearly losing balance as their “mass” battled gravity . Hilarious stuff! As for the movie, it managed to blow & suck at the same time. (Thanks Bart Simpson).
…equals Yagoohoogle.
The site is registered to an Asgeir Nilsen from Norway. Wonder what Yahoo & Google think of it.
Friday night at the local concert hall watching Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt kick Hindustani ass for 3 hours. And front row seats no less. (”Kick Hindustani ass” is probably a description that purists would frown upon, but that’s the best my illiterate self could conjure up). Luckily for us, Panditji announced what he was doing before every recital, so I deluded myself into thinking I knew what he was doing. For instance, I know he started off with Raag Maru Bihag which I later googled to discover was the Hindustani equivalent of the Kanada Raagam. He explained the concept of Aalaap, the slow start. Ok, alright…got it. Then things get more hectic in the er, um…the second part. And finally, the tabla joins in the, well, lets just say, the third part. Oh! it’s also where he said he’ll play everything in a 16/3 taal. And upon reading the looks of 500 befuddled short division experts, the Panditji quickly clarified that he’ll be working out the Math on that one. Their collective sighs of relief set aflutter the little hairs on the back of my neck.
