Private (Pop) Albums in Tamil

Malgudi Subha’s “Vaalpaarai Vattaparai”, Anuradha Sriram’s “I am a modern ponnu”, Veenai Gayatri’s “Pappara”, some X’s “How are you doing buddy”, Srinivas and Karthik’s “Ussele Ussele”, Lata Rajinikanth’s “Dhithimitha” are some of the pop songs that is fresh in my mind when I think of popular Tamil pop songs. And that is really negligible number. I am talking about the pathetic condition of Tamil Pop industry (there is no industry as such but yet let us call it that way) now and then.

In Hindi, there was an era where lot of great talents came to fore due to this private album concept. Though quality of the music has gone down now, Hindi pop has its own fan following. In Hindi, there are bunch of singers who hardly sing in movies but are popular and will be ever remembered for their music and singing in private albums. I think our composers, musicians and singers should seriously think about making private albums like them. Film composers like Yuvan, Vidhyasagar, Illayaraja (has done his part with “Thiruvasakam”) and A.R.Rahman should make private albums and make the genre popular among the common people. They should make people realize film music is not the only form of music.

People should be trained to listen to music as music alone. They should not rely on the visuals, hero/heroine and dance choreography to enjoy the music. I know people listening to some of the song just because it has their favorite hero shaking his legs for the song. I just could not digest the fact that how the presence of a hero whom you like, dancing for the songs turns a bad music into a good one. Further Tamil pop will help lot of young talents to come up. Also it will help some of underutilized and underrated composers like Karthik Raja, Ramesh Vinayakam to change track and create the kind of music they want to with full freedom.

The music in movies puts lots of constraints to a composer, which leads him to produce music, which he himself doesn’t like. A composer’s talent is a waste when the director of the movie has no ear for good music. The best example in recent times is Niru. I really liked most of his songs in his debut private album “Moongil Nila” but he couldn’t deliver same quality of music for the movie “Kalabha Kadhalan”. Yes, there are composers who take those constraints as challenge and come up with triumph. But I am not talking about great composers/ geniuses here. I am talking about fresh new talents with good-enough composing capabilities those who don’t get a good chance to exhibit all his talents through his music for a movie.

Why I am talking about this now? Last month I got really frustrated for wasting lot of money in buying movie soundtracks which didn’t live up to the expectations. I decided to try something different and I bought “Mudhal Mazhayae” and “Thee”. Both are private albums. “Mudhal Mazhayae” is by Devan (Composer + Singer) and Harish Ragavendra. “Thee” is by a band called “Encore”. Both are far better albums in freshness and experimentation comparing to the movie soundtracks that got released last month. I mean both the albums are worth of every penny you spend on them. The problem is how many of you know that such albums are getting released now and then. Even I didn’t know. There are lots of private albums in Tamil I come across when I go to music stores like Landmark and Music World.

There should be enough publicity, at least one song should be visualized and given to channels like SS Music and Sun Music channels to be played repeatedly to create some publicity. Audio clips can be given to FM Radio channels. The audio companies should come forward and encourage such products. With quality music and apt marketing technique, I think it is quite possible to make people buy private albums. Last year, SS Music had a talent contest and the winners released an album much like that of Indian Idol. But I think the music wasn’t great enough and that is why I said quality with apt marketing technique would play the trick. Of course, even pop songs needs visuals to make it popular but that is just because you can’t just play the song with a blank screen in TV channels to publicize the album and also presence of a big star will definitely boost the sales of the album. I heard Devan saying in an interview that they have made Videos for four songs in the album and they are soon to be aired in private channels for promoting the album. Let us see how it works out. I will write a review on both these albums very soon.