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Best five TFM artists of the century

Topic started by rameshb (@ spider-th042.proxy.aol.com) on Fri Dec 31 00:32:03 EST 1999.
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

TFM has seen many artists in singing, composing , playing instrument(s), conducting etc. When we look at their overall contributions and achievements in TFM , i would like you to list and rank the top five (only 5) artists whom you think were the best between the years 1900 - 1999.

Here is a list the top 5 TFM artists , IMO .

1. S P Balasubramanium
This highly prolific singer has exceeded all the expectations and continues to hold strong in TFM .

2. Ilaya Raja

He is the only complete musician TFM has seen who could bring about a seamless coalescence of western and indian.

3. M S Viswanathan

His melodies are so valuble to be preserved for future civilisation as they could symbolize our quality of life in future.

4. P Susheela

This melody queen who has won millions of hearts is an institution in TFM having contributed many chapters.

5. A R Rahman

He has set the stage for the next millenium and is certain to lead his counterparts in the years to come.

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Responses:

• Old responses
  
• From: Srikanth (@ 216.32.18.74) on: Mon Jan 3 18:58:55 EST 2000
  
  Out of topic!......
  Suren, you are right, raja owns about 60% of share in turning our ears away from Hindi music. He forced his way in to clear Hindi. During 1975..77 I use to go to A.V.Ramanan Musiano, The Suprims, Kamesh Raja mani, Sivaraj anand etc etc --- 60% of the songs sung were from Hindi movies. In fact A.V.Ramanan used to tell often that we sing more hindi songs.
  
  Measuring 5 best is similar to the old fruit basket logic, which fruit to choose!....depends on the taste of the individual.
  
  Tamil film music is ocean, limiting that to 5 people is not correct, many people have done lot of things, some of them we know and most of them we do not know.
  
  still , In my choice.
  1.MSV -- Changed the form of cine music, He was the one who introduced light music.
  2. Kannadasan --- Turned Cine songs to Ilakiyams.
  3. IlayaRaja -- Chased Hindi music and gave the WC flavor to TFM. Like MSV he was not affected or inspired by north Indian composers
  4. SPB --- Well defined singer and a great human being.
  5. A.R.R --- Made tamil music famous all over the country and made indian music famous around the world. Raised the std of recording and other technical aspect of music.
  6.7.8.9.10....I have more....
  
  
  
• From: Ravi (@ 202.188.156.190) on: Tue Jan 4 02:05:21 EST 2000
  
  
  my choices for the Top-5 tfm artists of the century
  
  1. Ilayarajaa
  2. S.P.Bala
  3. Vaali
  4. S.Janaki
  5. K.J.Yesudass
  
  
• From: e.hari (@ wstisp1c01.ml.com) on: Tue Jan 4 13:22:45 EST 2000
  
  My list would be
  1. IR
  2. SPB
  3. MSV/TKR
  4. ARR
  5. Kannadasan.
  
  SJ, TMS, KYJ, PS, VM will complete the Top 10 List.
  
  regards
  e.hari
  
  
  
• From: meera sandeep (@ inet-fw3-o.oracle.com) on: Tue Jan 4 19:39:21 EST 2000
  
  My choice is
  
  1.ILAIYARAJA
  2.K.J.YESUDAS
  3.S.P.BALU
  4.S.JANAKI
  5.P.B.SRINIVAS
  
  Cheers,
  Meera.
  
  
• From: Diwakar (@ 206.175.177.171) on: Tue Jan 4 20:23:33 EST 2000
  
  My list is :
  
  1. Ilayaraja
  2. Kannadasan
  3. MSV/TKR
  4. SPB
  5. SJ
  
  and
  
  6. Deva - made us all realise the difference between orginality and imitation, took that to great heights.
  
  Sorry guys, could not resist that one :-)
  
  
• From: thaths (@ inehou-pxy04.compaq.com) on: Wed Jan 5 12:01:41 EST 2000
  
  Srikanth: Your selection/taste pretty much matches mine (except that in the last one, neenga romba munnukku vandhutteenga; naan romba pinnukku pOyittEn :-)
  
  
• From: Srikanth (@ 216.32.18.74) on: Wed Jan 5 13:15:53 EST 2000
  
  thaths: Last one....are you refering to ARR or the 6.7.8.9....if so There are many faces in tfm who are often unnoticed. two such example are G.K.Venkatesh, Joseph Krisha...and many other assistans, they really work hard, actually composers idea reaches the musicians thru them.
  The keyboard players like Viji manual, Mani - drum players like Siva mani, Purushotaman, bass players like Roy, Keith peters...
  flute/sax players like Najunda ayya, guna singh,Karthick,Naveeen...tabla players like prasad are often unnoticed, thanks to rahman who makes sure that artists names appear on the tape.
  
  
• From: rameshb (@ spider-tr063.proxy.aol.com) on: Wed Jan 5 13:48:32 EST 2000
  
  Is/Are there any instrument players (tabla,drums,violin,flute,guitar,trumpet,sax,key board etc) who has served for many years with IR or MSV worth mentioning in top 10? Who were the leading violin/flute players for IR ?
  
  
• From: paamaran (@ tog-wakko1b.prognet.com) on: Wed Jan 5 14:15:33 EST 2000
  
  I think it is ArunMozhi who plays flute for most of IR's songs in late 80s and 90s
  
  
• From: srikanth (@ 216.32.18.74) on: Wed Jan 5 14:37:21 EST 2000
  
  Prasad -- tabla player - great talent!...I just love the way he plays in live shows,
  Roy - bass guitar,
  Naidu (Nanjunda ayya) - flute
  Rajagopal ; bangoes etc...
  
  
• From: rameshb (@ spider-tr063.proxy.aol.com) on: Wed Jan 5 14:50:44 EST 2000
  
  Sirkanth, paamaran
  thanks for bringing those names. The contributions of many of these unpretentious players go unnoticed inspite of their proficiency in bringing their MD's scores out in an elegant manner.
  
  
• From: Neels (@ 202.54.125.149) on: Thu Jan 6 00:18:54 EST 2000
  
  My (chronological) list includes:
  M.S. Viswanathan
  T.M. Soundararajan
  P. Susheela
  S.P.Balasubramaniam and
  Ilayaraja
  
  As for ARR, I would love to see him dominate the scene in THIS CENTURY! He definitely deserves accolades for smashing into the Northie territory!
  
  Neels
  
  
• From: Sriram Lakshman (@ snfca020-0270.splitrock.net) on: Thu Jan 6 02:51:32 EST 2000
  
  Rameshb, Sathyam - Shehnai for MSV
  Sundar - Bongoes for IR
  
  
• From: tamilkavi (@ gwnj.utstar.com) on: Fri Jan 7 18:06:16 EST 2000
  
  Ramesh,
  
  could you update on the scores the top 5 got till now?
  
  
  
• From: rameshb (@ spider-tj012.proxy.aol.com) on: Fri Jan 7 22:04:57 EST 2000
  
  Scores so far...
  
  IR 14.40
  MSV 11.30
  SPB 10.60
  Kannadasan 9.30
  PS 6.10
  ARR 4.10
  SJ 3.40
  TMS 2.50
  KJY 2.10
  PBS 1.50
  KVM 1.20
  vaali .80
  GR .80
  AMR .60
  MKT .60
  
  
  
• From: roshan (@ cache1.rivernet.com.au) on: Fri Jan 7 23:14:46 EST 2000
  
  My short list is:
  1.KANNADHASAN
  2.IR
  3.SPB
  4.SJ
  5.ARR
  
  Cheers,
  Meera.
  
  
• From: Rajendra Chola (@ proxy2.fm.intel.com) on: Mon Jan 10 03:42:39 EST 2000
  
  I lived through the era of GR(& have been heavily exposed to MKT) and watched Pattukotai Kalyanasundram and Kannadasan come and go and have been with all the others right up to ARR & VM .
  
  Comments ...
  1.In his day MKT was revered by masses for his singing talents .
  
  2.Even TV debates cannot pick between Pattukotai & Kannadasan.
  
  3.As I grew up,it was Kannadasans lyrics that we learnt to memorize and to understand the obvious and the hidden/alternate meanings and as you well know the humming of the lyrics was difficult, the words easy to rememember & many a movie made it solely on Kannadasan's lyrics. Inumerable to mentions MD/film titles being forgetten but Kannadasan lyrics are eternal.
  
  4.IR did make a huge impact over the rather stilted & precdictable combination of MSV-TKR making a remarkabke introduction to instruments, refrain, melody and longer, continous music segments.
  Elegant introduction and mixture of carnatic music took TFM to new unexplored & greater heights because of the extension of the repetoire.
  (Not MSV-TKR were not good - they had short music streches, isolated instrumnent pieces which were the work of that era as opposed to Hindi music MDs eg Shankar-Jaikishan, OP Nayyar etc etc.)
  
  5. SPB, SJ have had a reign which is truly remarkable,& unless I'm mistaken SJ goes back to the sixties and her voice timbre has been the same.
  TMS & SG reigned in their day but their era is past, & whilst we admired them I'll standby SPB & SJ.
  PS ofcourse has been around so long and has such great success(Ref : Latha M.) she must be a runner in any list.
  
  Hence my list of the top 5 would have to be :-
  
  1.Kannadasan
  2.IR
  3.SPB
  4.SJ
  5.PS
  
  P.S ARR has been not around long enough and we will let 2000 and coming years decide .
  
  BTW in TFM dicussion/criteria invasion into the Hindi world may indicate popularity but cannot be used as a strict criterion for evaluation of TFM quality.
  
  
• From: C. B. K. Menon (@ hse-cha-ppp39242.sympatico.ca) on: Mon Jan 10 13:20:13 EST 2000
  
  THE 10 GREATEST MALE SINGERS IN TFM OF THE CENTURY:
  1. M. K. Thiagaraja Bhagvathar
  2. P. U. Chinnappa
  3. T. R. Mahalingam
  4. S. G. Kittappa
  5. S. P. Balasubramanyam
  6. T. M. Soundararajan
  7. K. J. Jesudas
  8. Ghantasala
  9. P. B. Srinivas
  10. A. M. Raja
  
  THE 10 GREATEST FEMALE SINGERS IN TFM OF THE CENTURY:
  1. M. S. Subbulakshmi
  2. M. L. Vasanthakumari
  3. P. Susheela
  4. Jikki
  5. S. Janaki
  6. P. Leela
  7. P. Bhanumathi
  8. Jamunarani
  9. Balasaraswathi
  10. T. R. Rajakumari
  
  THE 5 GREATEST TFM ARTISTS (NON-SINGING) OF THE CENTURY:
  1. Kannadasan
  2. Vairamuthu
  3. M. S. Viswanathan
  4. Ilayaraja
  5. The first great original music director of films such as "Devadas" (can't think of his name offhand - can someone help? He set the trend and was the inspiration for his disciples like MSV)
  
  
  
• From: thaths (@ inehou-pxy04.compaq.com) on: Mon Jan 10 17:43:25 EST 2000
  
  Mr.Menon. In your female singers list, you have Banumathi and TR Rajakumari, but not Chitra ? surprised !
  
  
• From: OScars (@ netcachemel1.ozemail.com.au) on: Thu Jan 13 08:25:16 EST 2000
  
  and the best MAlE Singer award goes to-SPB
  and the best FeMAlE Singer award goes to-Pshusheela
  and the best music director award goes to-MSV
  and the best lyrics award goes to-Kannadasan
  and best upcoming talent ward goes to
  ARR
  
  
• From: Vambu (@ fw2.clmt.com) on: Thu Jan 13 11:12:53 EST 2000
  
  Oscars continued ::
  
  The best "original" soundtrack goes to "Thenisai Thendral Deva" ...
  
  When this award was announced, Phil Collins, Gloria Estafon, Kenny G and mnay more walked to the podium to pick up the Oscar on behalf of Deva....
  
  
  
  

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