Confessions of an Ilayaraja fan

Note:
i fiddled with the comments settings y’day and apparently had goofed up on something which made commenting impossible. I have rectified that now. Thanks to ioiio for informing me.

This dawned on me as i was listening to Raaga.com’s non-stop AR Rahman channel. While I consider IR to be the Don, God or whatever of tamil music, I also have to admit one thing. The person with the least number of trash songs is Rahman and this is by quite a distance. This has been told to me N number of times by my friend Madhu but I did not realise till date.

In a period ranging from Roja to the very latest Bose, I do not find anything which made me stop the music. The songs are at the minimum passable, if not hummable. Salutes to Rahman’s hardwork and consistency.

I remember Mani Ratnam mentioning in an interview about his priorities “First of all, as a creator, I should not feel bad about my work. After some years I should not feel like ‘Why did i ever make such a movie?’”. Quite a benchmark that.
And now after listening to Rahman, i could appreciate that statement even more.

17 Responses to “Confessions of an Ilayaraja fan”

  1. ioiio Says:

    yaaro..for a change enga pakkam pesara maari theriyudhu…

    welcome change dhaan

  2. Prabu Karthik Says:

    ioiio,

    naan appavum, ippavum, eppovum IR fan dhaan. But now i have lot of respect for Rahman’s consistency and his keenness to deliver songs of a particular standard irrespective of the film banner, director etc…

  3. snathan Says:

    Hi
    Me been in chennai for abt 2 yrs now…seekirama kelambidanum-nu pakkaren…aandavan vitta vazhi!
    will keep visiting you.

  4. ioiio Says:

    yeppa daa saami aana.. ellaarum than vendudhal ellaam sollittu poraaanga

  5. Prabu Karthik Says:

    ioiio,
    saamiyar ana dhan problem:)

  6. ioiio Says:

    unakkenna problem..societykku dhaaney

  7. Srivatsan Says:

    ARR consistency and delivering songs for a banner?? bullshit, boys was total crap, after he went to hindi his music sucx bigtime.
    IR than thalai, engai thalai than enikkum thalai, avar oru sivagi of music, no 1 can question his talent and quality hell deliver irrespective of who is involved

  8. Srivatsan Says:

    IR fannu sollittu neenga vandu ARR oda consistency a patthi pesangara, bose music is hardly hearable, piece of crap, manasilla nikkala

  9. Prabu Karthik Says:

    srivatsan

    feel aga koodadhu:)

    just like that “piece of crap” nu sollaradhuku srivatsan edhukku? naan kooda solven:)

    manasile nikalai is a different issue. But i still think, very few of ARR songs is “unbearable” category.

    the rest, be it our madurai mozart or whoever have given their share of “unbearables”… this is my humble opinion:)

    I would not say ARR is the greatest thing since Taj Mahal.
    He is not a genius or phenomenon like IR.

    But i respect his hardwork and his sincerity.

  10. Narayanan Venkitu Says:

    Prabhu,

    What did you mean by ‘Least no. of trash songs’?. Do you mean the lyrics? Or do you mean the song itself.! I am confused.!

    ARR is great no doubt. He came like a breathe of fresh air in Roja and still continues to do well..though IMHO not as punchy as he was earlier. Might be because he has branched out and does very few films now.

    Like I’ve commented in several blogs..I think ARR has lost a little bit now…Anyways Pardon me all you ARR hardcore fans.

    Anything will shine only with competition. I am glad that we have very good competition in the tamil film music world today.

  11. Prabu Karthik Says:

    Nrayanan sir,

    ARR musicla lyrics suthama puriyadhu:)

    just listen to “koncham nilavu” in thiruda thiruda.

    i think he has worked that to soe extent nowadays.

    i generally mean his orchestration.
    there are N number of immortal IR that will give you goospimples but there are quite a number of songs by IR which you would well stop halfway.

    adhai dhaan solla vandhen.

    mothathile IR fans, ARR fans rendu per kitteyum dharma adi vanga poren nu theriyudu:)

  12. Srivatsan Says:

    PK arr career can be dvided into two periods, b4 bollywood and after bw, b4 bw he gae some mid blowing compositions like the ones from tiruda tiruda and roja and bombay, after bw his quality detoriated, it was all crap, stuff like star, and all, with the exception being kanithil, his music today is a shadow of its former glory, adu nala arr consistency a patthi pesa kudathu.

  13. Prabu Karthik Says:

    Sri,

    what i mean by consistency is different from what u mean IMHO.

    i dont say about the great mindblowing numbers et al.

    ennamo i listened to all his works in random in raaga and i did not feel like stopping any song.

    ella song sum minimum oru dhadavai madhiri ketkara dhaan irukku.

    reg BW, i enjoyed rangeela, dil se, taal and that shyam benegal film…

    in fact that is the only hindi stuff i listen to along with 1942 ALS

    am not a serious harcore music buff.

    Given a choice i woukd listen to IR greatest hits in 80s.
    eludha idam pathadhu…

    even “unna vida” in virumandi was awesome…

  14. dinesh Says:

    PK,

    Even that stat (# of trash songs) is a very subjective stat. Just like you, I am an ilayaraja fan who likes to listen to rahman as well. Honestly, with our mindset and out interest in the present day music, we don’t “trash” songs as easily as we once would have, or like we will later on. And Rahman happens to be the beneficiary. Even with all that, there are quite a few rahman songs that I think are pretty bad.

    One thing I’ll give rahman..he picks and chooses his projects and commits to very few movies, thus automatically reducing the # of trashy songs per year. Ilayaraja didn’t choose wat so ever..committed to whatever came his way.

  15. ioiio Says:

    ennadaaa kudumi pudi sandai pottukkareenga..

  16. Prabu Karthik Says:

    dinesh,

    interesting views. thinking hard i agree that “trash” is subjective.
    maybe thats what srivatsan says:)
    ama nee yen blog update pannalai? busy?

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