Minor Scale

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]

Kumari - Shankar Mahadevan, Harini

Shanjaane thOne thaane naenaano are the first lines that greet you on the album, as if providing a partial answer to the question, “What would happen if HJ’s gibberish fetish & Shankar’s penchant for Tanglish got together on an album?”. So anyway, Shankar Mahadevan starts off in a vaayellaam veththala voice and the words now slowly morph into vaguely sensible lyrics - Mosangaari, Alangaari etc. Vairamuthu getting warmed up. Some fast synths lead us into the pallavi where S.Mahadevan begins Kumari in his normal voice, and in mid-octave that promises not to expose his high-pitched, full throated flaws as yet. The tune is instantly likeable too. For one, it is somewhat unlike previous HJ tunes and with typical Rahman-like sweet piano accompaniment, the song promises to impress more. The basic rhythm sounds like it is based off the mridangam, only worked upon to sound fuller. Nice touch. Neat interludes follow, with the guitar playing sweet sounding classical notes accompanied by the actual mridangam this time. The saranam does justice to the melody and is very pleasant, while Shankar Mahadevan ventures into more Brahmin accented singing replacing his sa’s with sha’s like in, “shethupOgum” or “vaashal”. The end of the first saranam is also pretty with HJ employing just neat chord shifts, while only the line Kumari is sung twice, exploring both ends of the song scale. Harini makes her presence known for the first time as the rhythm mutes for a few seconds, and with a strumming guitar to accompany her, she hums her way into the second interlude. The tone of the song is soon briefly replaced by some smooth jazz sounds with a ghatam in the background & Harini continuing her humming. The transition back to the second saranam is not untidy and credit to HJ for a nice interlude. (It also goes without saying that HJ is always layering the appropriate bassy strings onto the song, like he always does.) The final rendition of the pallavi is when Harini starts singing the actual lines of the song, in her always lovely voice. In all, a shemma composition by Harris Jeyaraj (sorry, couldn’t resist). And setting my anti-Shankar Mahadevan bias aside, this will score high on my points system. {7.5/10}
Locales spotted: None

Kaadhal Yaanai - Nakul, Melwyn, G.V. Prakash

Aaah! GV Prakash. It’s been quite sometime since that kid corrupted Rahman’s compositions with his annoying voice, right? Well, looks like he embraced manhood sometime in the recent past and decided to make a second bow, once again through a Shankar movie. (’SambharMafia‘ Kaps also tells me he is a soon-to-be composer). Only problem being, identifying his voice amongst two other newcomers is not as easy, so it’ll still remain a mystery. But let’s just assume that for old times sake, Shankar decided to give him the opening lines of a song, which means it is GVP that starts off this number with an enthusiastic ‘Olalae Olae’ followed by the other voices raining Tanglish lyrics, finally culminating in the energetic pop-ish rhthym. The experiments with Tanglish continues, even though I have no clue what the guy is singing. I did hear a lot of “Remo” or was it “Ramone”. Dragon, Stun-Gun, Amoeba, King Cobra naturally follows and the chorus ends with this line - Rio De Ja-nneiro Romeo. VairamuthuMuthukumar Saar, Brazil - the land of Giselle Bundchen & Adrian Lima, and you had to use it in your song to refer to a dude?? Tch.Tch. Google, man. Do some research.
The song, yeah. Well, what can I say? Been there, heard that, Harris. Even that subtle but snazzy background synth you use in the chorus. I did like the “Uh-uh-uh” that starts off the first interlude, even though it doesn’t lead anyplace good. The saranam sounds familiar and is so Harris Jeyaraj sounding that he has even used it before. 12B I think. The second interlude invokes the “Olalae” again followed by nice female vocals telling me “Unakku Oyla, Enakku Salsa”. And that’s all I have to say about this song. It has nothing to boast of in terms of innovation. Very tired sounding, pop-ish number that is sure to be a hit with the college-going youngsters and older folks who should really let go of those Brtiney Spears CDs by now.{4/10}
Locales spotted: I’m going to go out on a limb here and pick the Malaysian airport. Plus, I’m sure there was some Malay hidden somewhere in that gibberish.

Kannum Kannum - Leslie (Lewis) , Andre, Vasundhara Das

I was once reading this book on Mixing, and the author added his 2 cents about shaping the intro of a song. He mentioned how the first 15-20 seconds of the song are so crucial in establishing the distinct mood & likeability of a song. While there are definitely exceptions to this rule, it somewhat foretells what to expect of the rest of the song. Kannum Kannum is a perfect example of how a song fails in that respect, esp. in establishing an unique sound. Compare this for example with every song from a recent Rahman album, Aytha Ezhuthu. Ten seconds into every song and you can smell the freshness, esp. that fantastic Nenjam Ellaam.
Some kind of boring preset rhythm or loop starts off Kannum Kannum accompanied by a slide-guitar piece that you immediately recognize as something HJ used in a recent movie (Kovil?). The rhythm is soon replaced by a state-of-the-art house beat and Leslie Lewis(I think) makes his Tamizh debut with a catchy first line - Kannum Kannum Nokia. Hmmm… decent play on words I thought. Then disaster follows. Cappucino Coffee-a, Sophia. Puke. And what follows is the inevitable journey into Trite-sville. Both by lyricist & composer. Even the sudden shift in mood for another product placement (’Aiwa Aiwa Azhagae’) is uninteresting. Nothing fancy about the first interlude either. The beats get louder and the slide guitar is back. The saranam, as expected, only gets worse. If I were some kind of music theorist specialising in HJ, I would’ve probably seen every note coming. Why this kind of callousness for a Shankar movie?
I did listen to the rest of the song, but I plan to stop with this. Podhum da Shaami. {2.5/10}
Locales spotted: None, but hopefully Shankar plans to distract audiences (read: me) with Yana Gupta in this song.

Iyengaaru Veetu - Hariharan, Harini

1:22 seconds into this song and I thought, “Locasion located, Sunker Saar. That Carnatic Kutcheri this only, no?”
I liked the way the actual song started off after the looong kutcheri routine though. A subtle, subdued beat and the quick & tidy flute-ish piece form the launch-pad for Hariharan to investigate the classical nuances of Iyengar Veetu Azhagae. Now, I’m not a big Hariharan fan. Great voice, but mostly annoying as a playback singer with his need to show off his classical background in the most inappropriate situations. But considering that he has been given a license to do exactly that in this song, Hariharan makes the most of it. Mostly interesting, and sometimes overdoing it. The pallavi/anu pallavi, just like the intro that led to it, is pleasant and this time, Harini is used much sooner than in her previous song, and when has she ever disappointed? The first interlude is safely done, with the carnatic chorus starting off things followed by some agitated ghatam rolls. The saranam begins off on familiar terms. The first 2 lines are the exact same sandham as the saranam of the ‘Snehithanae’ song. Maybe not obvious, but it somehow struck me right off the block. Anyway, it takes it own course from that point and finishes off rather nicely. The second interlude is sheer deja vu for anyone who has heard ‘Narumugaiye’ atleast 5 times. The Mohana Veena notes from the original are improvised upon and played on an actual veena. But with the ghatam rolls accompaying it, the similarity is too hard to dismiss. Disappointing.
In all, a decent composition in spite of the overall lack of originality. I’ll be surprised if I don’t tire of it soon. {5.5/10}

Andan Kaakka - Kay Kay, Jassie Gift, Shreya Goshal

The folksy start to Andan Kaakka followed by the obviously Uppu Karuvaadu inspired beats (including the ‘Ola Ola’), almost shows how much Shankar misses his original composer of choice. Harris Jeyaraj sets a furious pace for the song right from the get-go and brings in his favorite singer, Kay Kay to start off proceedings. The metaphors are more specific with the hero actually describing the woman’s teeth as being of the IR-8 arisi kind. Anyway, Jassie Gift, singing flatter & louder than usual, adds some spice to the song. And in sweet contrast, follows Shreya Goshal (oh! how I love her voice) who is getting more & more comfortable singing Tamil. The pace is never let down in the first interlude. And it has more variety in store. Changing rhythms and a nice rustic violin maintains the folksiness of the song. The overall decent saranam suffers just from the fact that KayKay had to sing in the higher pitches thus reminding me of the Kalyaanam thaan kattikittu song…yet again. The second interlude reprises the intro “yela yela” & “ola olas” followed by a cursory flute & a violin to round it off. Jassie Gift sees more singing time in the second saranam and all I can say is, you’ll either love or hate his singing. Hopefully he doesn’t hang around too much and soon begin to annoy us all.
The song, again suffers from originality, but will keep your feet tappping nevertheless…until you move onto the next folksy offering from another composer. {5/10}
Locales spotted: I can already see Vikram & Sada ‘randakka-ing’ about 350 freshly painted houses in Thenkasi.

—————- Bottomline—————
** You could should have done better, Harris **

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 28th, 2005 at 7:20 pm and is filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.