7.12.2008

Sakkarakatti Soundtrack

‘God Father’, ‘Jillunu Oru Kaadhal’, ‘Sivaji’, ‘Azhaghiya Tamizh Magan’ in Tamil, ‘Guru’, ‘Jodha Akbar’, ‘Ada’, ‘Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Naa’ in Hindi were Rahman’s works in recent past and with that you know the kind of comparison I draw in here. I too agree that it is unfair to compare chalk and cheese as the kind of movies Rahman chose to do in Hindi and Tamil were totally different. But my problem is mainly with Rahman’s choice of movies and then comes the quality of music. No doubt all the aforementioned Tamil soundtracks were big hits but Um… Forget it. Coming to ‘Sakkarakatti’

We have another sure-shot winner from Rahman in ‘Sakkarakatti’ soundtrack which is full of Rahman clichés. He kills a Tamil song again by using Madhusree; he explores Chinmayi’s voice further in a song, the template of which is one of the weirdest experimentations of Rahman in recent past, uses two of his already released Hindi tracks from ‘Meenaxi’, composes a ultra cool number with Blaaze’s rapping in between and it has a single word repeated twice as its hooky phrase.

‘Yelae’ is the most interesting song of the soundtrack. An instantly catchy guitar riff and a flamboyant violin running across wildly in conversation with the vocals, harmonica bits, the musicality of the word ‘Yelae’ and the amount of casualness it brings to the mood of the song, the cool singing of Krish and Naresh Iyer all put together makes ‘Yelae’ an easy stand out of this soundtrack.

The one good thing about listening to ‘Sakkarakatti’ is that it made me to revisit the soundtrack of ‘Meenaxi’. ‘Meenaxi’ is so special to me because it was the first ever soundtrack CD I bought after buying Philips 5 in 1 player. Aah… What an experience it was. It was a real stunning soundtrack of Rahman and not so surprisingly it still is.

What I expect from Rahman is such a complete soundtrack, which Rahman once use to dish out movie after movie in Tamil.

To Muneer: The soundtrack has two already heard songs, one weird number ‘I miss u da’ which I am sure will soon be forgotten, another mediocre melody ‘Marudhaani’ (with some great interludes and humming parts) but with Madhusree, one cool and peppy number, one great song ‘Yelae’ and with this mix, I am little hesitant to call it a great soundtrack on the whole. But I like the soundtrack.

25 comments:

Anonymous said...

There is a time ,i'm waiting for your review..but nowadays it seems like yo're more concentrating finds the faults from rahman..expecting later a review as more concentrated on musical experiments!

Amjath said...

for me i think its a great album as a whole.......

hearing in looooooop

-Amjath

Anonymous said...

suresh - I think Rahman is doing the right thing by reserving his better songs for Hindi films, nowadays. Earlier in the 90s, he used to work mostly in tamil films and so we could hear his best in tamil. Post 2000 he is doing more & more hindi/international projects which are more prestigious given the huge budgets involved in them. So their music has to be outstanding.

If he reserves his best for Tamil, they reach a lesser number of audience. The music album sales depends on lots of factors such as the song picturisation, the stars/directors involved, marketing, hype,etc. After all this, if the movie flops at the BO, the music will be forgotten as well. So whats the point in giving his best for Tamil?

Vinith said...

suresh,

heard saroja??

A fantastic album from yuvan... come on listen to it and post your review....

P.S. Suresh Kumar said...

Arun – That is not fair. There are many promising directors in Tamil now and he should team up with them and I am sure some magic will happen. All film music composers need a strong association with contemporary directors. Shankar and Maniratnam are not enough. He is becoming so unapproachable for talented new directors in Tamil these days.

P.S. Suresh Kumar said...

Vinith - Waiting for the official CD release and only after that i will listen and post my review... heard the song 'My life' that you sent me yesterday... It is very rare to find such pure genre pieces in Indian film soundtracks and Yuvan has done a pretty good job...

Vinith said...

Thats really a brave attempt. I gues i have to revise my words "Sakkarakatti is the best album so far". Saroja has all ingredients to compete with Sakkarakatti. Check out my review. :)

Unknown said...

Even with Madhushree's usual thamizh kolai Marudhaani is the best i thought (discounting the reused tracks ofcourse)

Aah. What exactly was the idea behind that Chinmayi track 'I miss u da'. First time I heard it, couldn't really make sense of what was going on for the 6 minutes course of it. The humming 'emeneee' was funny actually. Waiting to hear the experience of Chinmayi from her blog.

Vinith said...

Hey guys,

I cursed Madhusree like anything for songs like Perunthil, Ragasiya kanavugal etc.

But i'm ok with her rendition in Marudani song. Could see a good improvement in it. Experts Comments please!!!

Betw, Marudani and Taxi are my pic. Taxi - Awesome!!

P.S. Suresh Kumar said...

Muthuvel - I too see that Marudhani is interesting in parts but the melody just doen't flow easily into the ears... i liked the interludes and Rahman's humming very much...

P.S. Suresh Kumar said...

Also everyone seems to be excited about the experimentation in 'I miss u da', yes i do see that Rahman has done something very unique with the way he has used the loops, but without a solid melody, what is the use?

Anonymous said...

Nopes!... I am with u suresh, on 'I miss u da'.

Am not excited at all about it. It's weird...and am wondering still what exactly was the idea behind the experimentation. It doesn't work at all for me.

Emjay said...

"Reserve best tunes for Hindi"??

I thought for a music composer, tunes are like "Oothu". It must keep coming....on and on....without any labor.

So, the question of limited best tunes doesn't arise for a composer.

Anonymous said...

I agree with muneer. I come to your blog frequenly for ur detailed reviews. But u have started to just criticise instead of review.

Even in the so-called review that you have added just for muneer's sake, you fail to impress. It would never pass as a review. You have changed very much in terms of reviewing.

I'm imagining that you go "" aah..sigh not again..this arr.. sakkarakatti .. mediocre album" and all..

Just what I think...

P.S. Suresh Kumar said...

Jaazay - Will reply in detail. I understand your anger.

P.S. Suresh Kumar said...

Emjay - Rightly said. But one cannot deny that each composer has his own working style. And we cannot expect everyone to work spontaneously and instinctively as Illayaraja does.

Vinith said...

I hope you ppl are aware of this news. Taxi song is unoriginal and has been inspired from this one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62cnG_Al9qY

Vinith said...

Adding to your words on Ilayaraja,

Ilayaraja finished the whole composition for "Chinna Thambi" in 30 Mins.

Emjay said...

I am sorry. I do not intend to trigger a debate about ARR vs IR here.

Lets keep those two gentlemen aside and all I am trying to say here is - the words like reserving the best tunes for XYZ doesn't arise as the tunes are manifestation of 7 swaras and they are infinite for a composer.

Anonymous said...

emjay/suresh - I'll rephrase my statement. Its not that ARR reserves his best tunes for Hindi.

I would say he spends more time, energy, thought for Hindi movies. He does about 2-3 Hindi & 1-2 Tamil films a year and occasional international projects. So I would say his priority / interest level for Tamil films may have come down. This is just a thought that occurred to me. I may be wrong! I hope I am.

btw, Sakkarakkatti is not that bad an album. But definitely not ARR's all time best.

P.S. Suresh Kumar said...

Vinith - Thanks for the link. Will check it out.

Emjay - No, your words didn't say IR anywhere but with words like 'Oothu', one would obviously think of IR... and that isn't your fault...

Arun -

// Sakkarakkatti is not that bad an album. But definitely not ARR's all time best.//

That is exactly what I told in my Sakkarakatti review... but in a different way.

Anonymous said...

vinith. ARR finished SOK in 30 mins as well!

http://www.mayyam.com/hub/viewtopic.php t=11787&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15

Vinith said...

pls compare the quality of the outpyt...
CT had 8 gem songs (barring 2/3 average songs) 5 genuine songs we got from it...
SOK?

Anonymous said...

If CT is 5/8 then SOK is 3/5 .The level of exprementaion with regards to music in CT & SOK, is always there. There will be success and failure but an attempt had been done insted of monotony.

Anyways ARR's approch to music composition is different as per his answer to a question in kumudham this week

Also arun if only ARR selects tamil film as well as hindi films, boy we are in for a treat

Vinith said...

Hi anon,

i dont deny that attempt has been made. am not against arr.
if SOK is an experiment with mediocre success, CT is an attempt with a grand succes. anyways, lets not have an argument abt IR/ARR. To me both are legends.