Maayakannadi

When I saw Cheran’s Autograph and Thavamai Thavamirundhu, I thought how great the movie would have become in Illayaraja’s music. Especially the kind of scenes Cheran conceives is perfect ones for Illayaraja to come up with soul stirring background scores. These two movies had some good variety of songs and different situations which I thought Illayaraja would have done justice in his way. So, when I heard the news that Illayaraja is the composer for Cheran’s next, I was eagerly waiting and expectations were sky high. But after listening to ‘Mayakkannadi’, I felt Cheran has got Illayaraja for a wrong movie. We cannot blame Cheran, because Illayaraja came into the project because of the producers of the movie.

In present scenario, the directors who have no guts to reject a tune of Illayaraja could better stay away from him. Even for Balumahendra, Illayaraja gave just above average tunes recently. I think as of now, if there is someone in the Tamil films who can get the best out of IR; it is Kamal or may be Bala. Illayaraja is not taking film music seriously these days. IR said he initially took 15 days to write music for Thiruvasakam and after finished writing it, he was not satisfied with the music and then started writing again from scratch. Why can’t he follow the same in film music? Why can’t he give the same importance to film music? Frankly speaking, he himself won’t remember the song he has composed for this movie a few months down the line. I am not saying that the songs are bad, it is good but it is repetitive and boring. I feel IR should stick to his own style, I mean the synth, e-beats and jarring sound loops doesn’t really gel well with his typical melodies.

Yet, the sweetness in ‘Konjam Konjam’, IR’s singing in ‘Yele Enga Vanthey’, interesting rhythm pattern in ‘Kaasu Kaiyil’ and ‘Kadhal Indru’, the orchestration of ‘Maya Logam’ and especially ‘Ulagilae Azhaghi’, and interludes in all the songs are some likeable aspects of this soundtrack. And of course, I still have hopes on the background score of the movie. Let us wait and watch.