Y not for Yuvan

There are few things in a Yuvan Shankar Raja soundtrack that could immediately put me off – Hip-hop, non-Tamil singers, Yuvan’s singing and too many layers of sound. I am not against hip hop, but these days there is too much of hip-hop happening in Tamil movie soundtracks and especially in Yuvan’s. So, even when the core melody of the song is good, as it is in all the songs in ‘Sarvam’, it takes time for me to look beyond these obstacles and enjoy them. But, I did overcome and enjoy Sarvam songs.

Yuvan is at his worst these days, when it comes to picking singers for his melodies. He butchers every other good song of his by using a non-Tamil singer. A.R.Rahman did a big mistake by bringing Hindi singers to sing Tamil songs. He continued to do it despite facing a lot of criticisms and despite some singers not improving a wee bit in their pronunciation. Now, Yuvan gets Javed Ali to sing in Tamil even before A.R.Rahman. Yuvan’s singing is equally worse. These composers easily put the blame on the movie director when asked about why they are singing their own compositions. Isn’t that a stupid excuse?

Restraint is one of the important qualities of a great composer. Sometimes Yuvan just doesn’t know where to stop when adding layers to the songs. For example, ‘Sutta Sooriyana’ from Sarvam is meant to be a song packed with power. Yuvan already has a powerful melody but he adds rhythm layers to thicken the song with more power which just makes it louder. This is also done in the name of freshness in the sound of a song, which isn’t mandatory for a song to stay in the minds of a listener. All that is necessary for a listener in a song is a gripping melody. I find the melody in ‘Sutta Sooriyana’ the most powerful and gripping in the soundtrack.

Yuvan is in a middling phase now where he gives just one or two good melodies in every soundtrack and that too butchered by non-Tamil singers (the most reecent being Oru Devathai from Vaamanan, could someone remind Yuvan that a KK or Karthik can sing such Hindustani based numbers equally well without spoiling the language). I am eagerly waiting for Yuvan to be back in form in some worthy projects.

I am not saying this just from music point of view but also as a consumer who buys original CD of every soundtrack. For those who listen by illegal downloads, one or two good songs in enough as they get it for free, but for someone who legally buys paying the hard earned money, I guess it not too much to expect all the songs to be good when buying a CD for Rs.100/-.