Home   Forum   Wiki   Notes   Register   FAQ   Sitemap   About Us   Contact Us  

Is IR's quality now indeed less than his yesteryears?

Topic started by SR Kaushik (@ ntws229.cs.wisc.edu) on Tue Oct 13 22:30:43 EDT 1998.
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

Many people opine that the IR of the 80s was best and that his standard now is a little lesser. I do not agree. While I do feel that his quality in the early 90s was a bit down, after the advent of ARR, he is back to his old form, although his style has changed. IMO, (all songs of) Guru, (some songs of) Kaliyoonjalu, Yatra mozhi, Avatharam, Nammoora Mandaara Hoove are as good as his best.

I can cite a few reasons why so many people feel IR now is not as good as IR of the 80s:

1. Nostalgia.
2. An explanation for his relative lack of commercial success now.
3. We have all listened to so much music that we are used to it, and hence the charm that music once used to have is reduced. Or rather, let me put it this way - one's musical appreciation becomes more intellectual than emotional.

I think this would be an interesting topic to discuss.

---

Responses:

• Old responses
  
• From: balaji (@ nt71.cs.uiuc.edu) on: Wed Oct 14 11:59:08 EDT 1998
  
  i don't think raja needs challenging subjects. he needs a good environment with good directors like MR and people who know what they want, like kamal. many famous songs of raja have stayed immortal in sloppy films, especially in his earlier days.of late, his performance is good with people whom he shares a rapport with(fazil, rajkiran, r.v.udayakumar etc). KM was not a challenging subject for IR, the same old love songs. hopefully we will hear great things from him in marudhanayakam and the next film of sangili murugan.
  
  
• From: SR Kaushik (@ ntws108.cs.wisc.edu) on: Wed Oct 14 13:37:52 EDT 1998
  
  What I meant by intellectual interest over emotional interest is this: If earlier 8 out of 10 good songs appealed to one emotionally, today it has reduced to say 3 0r 4 out of 10. Of course, I can understand that it is very difficult to distinguish whether it is because of you or because of the song's quality.
  
  Digression:
  As for "Guru", my favorite song is Guru charanam - I've never heard that raagam before. The song has a lot of spiritual appeal; I feel transported to Ramakrishna Math on listening to it. The best part of this song is the first interlude.
  
  As far as his Tamil songs go, its true that there are only few Tamil songs among his greats now which is quite unfortunate. But his number of Tamil films has also reduced. Even earlier, he used to give trash songs for trash films (with a few shining exceptions). Maybe, as Balaji said, the general atmosphere matters - if a Kamal, BR, Balu Mahendra, Mani Ratnam made more frequent visits, he would do better even for bad films.
  
  
• From: Ravy (@ eagle.vapower.com) on: Wed Oct 14 13:43:38 EDT 1998
  
  UV:
  Kadhal Rojavae? yes. may be 5-10 yrs from now.
  
  
• From: Srinivas (@ pup36.stanford.edu) on: Wed Oct 14 14:15:41 EDT 1998
  
  Sankar,
  Again I agree that "Thataram" is indeed out of the world. The first interlude violin piece is arguably one of the best W.Classical interludes of Raja.
  Guru is easily one of the best albums of Raja in recent times if not in his whole career.
  
  And to do justice to Raja's achievements, we really have to consider his work spread across all the South Indian languages. It may be true that in TFM, emotional appeal has gone down. But that is due to the "Arr syndrome" where rhythm has gained more and more prominence than melody. And to make your song rhythmic and emotionally appealing at the same time is no easy task.
  And Raja has done it with "Ennai Thalaatta".
  IN kannada and mallu, where he is not bound my "market forces" (read as ARRmania), he is much more free to experiment and the result is there for everyone to see.
  Guru may have been exceptional becos' the theme was inspiring.
  But it is hard to imagine that "Nammoora..", "Shiva Sainya,m" and "Prema raga>." were all so exceptional that raja was in some ways "more inspired". In fact, I consider that Raja's work in these three Kannada movies has been his most experimental in recent times.
  
  I also feel that Raja has responded very well to competition from ARR in a way that proves that he is quite flexible and open to other avenues.
  
  For example, the "arumbum thalire " song from Chandra Lekha has some refreshing guitar interludes. This is the first time that I am hearing such sounds from raja.
  
  My opinion is that complaints about "lack of emotional appeal" etc are just a way of finding explanations about market decline.
  
  
• From: vijay (@ 129.252.22.246) on: Wed Oct 14 14:40:40 EDT 1998
  
  to argue better we might have to define what do we mean by 'quality'. for some, it might be the interesting, new guitar or flute interludes. for others like me it might be mainly melody. for yet others, it might be some new technical explorations, usage of different bar lengths , usage of new raagas or instruments or whatever.
  
  time and again in this forum i have always requested, for us to list down some criteria on the basis of which we can argue. otherwise this whole thing becomes purely subjective.
  
  what sounds emotional to me might be crap for someone else and vice versa.
  
  and above all in this kind of discussion it is difficult to come to a consensus or that is what i have observed in my 1 1/2 year experience with TFM! emotional appeal is something which is best felt and cannot be effectively put down on paper using technical terms. neither can u quantify it.
  like they say 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder' an equivalent quote can be framed for music also.
  for seasoned campaigners here, iam sorry if my statements above seem to be very familiar.
  
  
• From: rajiv (@ crete.umd.edu) on: Wed Oct 14 15:25:50 EDT 1998
  
  i think the main problem (and there is one, according to me) with raja's recent outputs is predictability. take ennai talaata.. agreed its melodious, but its almost as predictable (and featureless) as a deva song.. please understand that i refer not to the quality of the song itself but only the predictability.. maybe it has something to do with the featurelessness of the films that he handles today..
  i am convinced that raja performs best when he has a situation to score for.. sadly this is missing in most of todays films..
  another thing, as someone has said earlier, is that his songs no longer have that intutive flow to them.. they seem to be the products of thought as opposed to feeling..
  
  
• From: Shashi (@ eed02990.mayo.edu) on: Wed Oct 14 15:41:33 EDT 1998
  
  Hi vijay
  
  I tend to agree with a lot of your comments. I agree that the definition of quality in music is very vague. I thought for some time that laying down criteria rather than being purely subjective is a good idea. But again, the criteria are purely individual based--isn't it? For example, somebody may prefer the melody, someothers the orchestration and yet another group the lyrical appeal etc..
  
  If you have gone thru the discussion by Tagore and Einstein you would have realised that "good music" is hard to define and it is beyond the listener himself as to what captivates him.
  
  Having said all this I still feel that the idea of this DF is to view comments by various persons on a particular song and hence try to atleast understand individual tastes/preferences etc..
  
  Regarding 'Guru'--there cannot be enough praise for this album. I feel all songs are really unique in their own respects and well thought of and composed.
  
  Interestingly(since everybody talks about Arunakirana) the song that emotionally affected me on my first hearing was "Minnaram maadathu.." There could have been a number reasons on retrospect as to why I was captivated by this song. First the voice itself is extremely refreshing--that's the only way I can describe it and it is filled with emotion. Second the song is composed in beautiful Hamsanadham (I personally think the notes N3, and M2 are extremely beautiful notes in the context of a scale; the very same notes are emphasized in Kalyani to give its beauty). Also being pentatonic adds beauty to a raga. The instrumentation and the interludes are quite well composed. Although I agree here with Srikanth that the metering in this song is not by any imagination different from Raja's usual style it still does not decrease the beauty of the interludes.
  
  Finally the melody of this song itself is simply beautiful--sorry guys thats the best I can do to describe it--it is just beautiful. When I had composed a song in Hamsanadham I once thought what else could a composer do to get the beauty of this Raga--then from the blue--Raja delivers this song which is a feast for the ears; an answer for my question! That is the Raja I want to see more and more.
  
  
• From: Anand Mahadevan (@ freedum.proxy.lucent.com) on: Wed Oct 14 17:19:52 EDT 1998
  
  "Aroonakirana" if put in perspective,viz-a-viz the movie is stupendous.The situation has an electrifying affect.There are so many different moods evoked in that song.The tempo is reduced and rythym patterns changed.
  In the movie,the song is played as a background when blind people first see light.Its a fictional village where only blind people live and Mohanlal gives them a potent drug, which restore back their eyesight.The opening piece is when the first ray of light enters the cave and people get terrified to see light.When they come out of the cave, they see their next kith and kin for the first time.Parents seeing their offsprings and vice versa does throw a lot of emotion and visualization/score was apt.
  I rate this song as an all time great both in terms of composition/orchestration as well as the theme behind this song.
  I sometimes used to wonder how fellow composers would have handled the same situation.
  
  
• From: vijay (@ 129.252.27.23) on: Wed Oct 14 17:38:37 EDT 1998
  
  shashi,
  hamsanaadham, mohanam, kalyani etc. are raags in which u cannot but compose melodious songs IMO. i want IR to take a raaga like kamboji or darbaar which he has not done so far and give good melodies.
  regarding u'r comments i wish to point out the postings in the topic started by srikanth and u- 'raja's theoritical approach'. srikanth
  and u have said that raja's theoritical approach, his predictability with respect to bar lengths, chord progression etc. have made his songs completely predictable and dull for a COMMON LISTENER. well aruna girana is an example of how raja without deviating from his so called 'predictable' style according to u can suprise common listeners like me. like u even i ws impressed with minnaram maduthu and aruna girana on first hearing. after several hearings i was able to enjoy the album as a whole.
  
  regarding the criteria, irrespective of individuals tastes we should list down some 5 or 6 general criteria that goes into making a good song. for example say
  
  1. melody
  
  2. orchestration
  
  3. choice of singers and their performance
  
  4. innovation/creativity
  
  5. special sound effects etc.
  
  we should all discuss based on those 5 or 6 points and the opinion of the majority of the DF'ers should be taken as the final statement on that song.
  now such a thing is practically impossible due to the volume of effort it takes. so it is pointless for anyone to say that IR's quality has come down without even saying what one means by quality.
  
  that's why i have said that the 'emotional content' has come down in his songs which according to me seems to be a fact.
  
  songs like oh!baby baby in KM upset me even though they have good percussion. IR used to combine his fast paced songs with good tunes as well like 'punnagayil minsaaram' or 'megam megam'.
  but most of his songs in TFM today seem to be having some kind of complicated tunes or orchestration or beats. but the end result is that they don't impress upon u.
  
  i was listening to 'idhu oru nilak kaalam' from tik tik tik yesterday. when i was a kid i used to
  repeat these songs with ease even after a couple of hearings. now it takes a lot of hearings to get the feel for a raaja song and in most of the cases i end up disappointed.
  
  
  
• From: Observer (@ spider-wg031.proxy.aol.com) on: Wed Oct 14 17:57:59 EDT 1998
  
  Hi pals
  
  'Quality' in music ?? First of all , I do not know whether I am qualified to speak in any relative terms , for I consider myself technically novice in the area. But having due concerns as a end-user, i thought i could sneak in to vent my emotions as regards Raja's stance in TFM. What is more appealing IMO, is that all of us (most of us) have not outgrown that taste of melody that Raja set in our minds in the 80's. We still are reliving, relishing on the enchanting melodies of his best time . IMO, he certainly has NOT lost his feel in the art. After listening to his album GURU, I have a feeling that he is trying to give a new dimension to his talent and to the music as a domain which no one has achieved in india so far. Like I said in my review of GURU, he is certainly on a experiment spree with utmost freedom which he never had before , probably. He seems to be trying to reach MUKHTHI (which i would say in simplistic terms, ULTIMATE) in music which some 'YOGI's are believed to attain in their later part of life. In show business, it is very hard to blend such an experimentation with films of commercial nature which are basically light duty stuff. Our producers in TFM probably have no place for his experimentaion, and so he seems to be declining any offers which have no place for his thematic ventures. He gives occasional numbers once in a while like KM, just to keep in touch with TFM. As a true objective lover of music, I have no regrets for his apparant decline until this year in the 90's which has VALID reasons. But, based on the number of films he is signing now, he seems to have got some impetus, and is on a come-back trail. We still have to wait and see as to how he transforms his envivions to become commercially viable for TFM with his added dimension based on experimentaion. In GURU, I could certainly see signs of results of his aspiring ventures. He is certainly of a calibre which no has ever achieved in TFM until today. I donot want to bring other MDs to this discussion and tarnish his ingenuity.
  The KING was down(apparently) and NOT out.
  
  
  

---

List all pages of this thread

Post comments