Home   Forum   Wiki   Notes   Register   FAQ   Sitemap   About Us   Contact Us  

Shankar-Ehsan-Loy !

Topic started by cosmician (@ 194.170.127.53) on Sun Jun 24 00:21:11 EDT 2001.
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

Shankar-Ehsan-Loy...maybe the only other MD with Bollywood roots also composing for TF....I was listening to their "Dil Chahta Hai"..except for the title track, all the other songs seem to meander around...but they are the only ones around in Bollywood who give a original techno touch to their music apart from ARR.

"Aalavandhaan" is their next big TF release...would like to hear your opinions on this trio.

---

Responses:

• Old responses
  
• From: srikanth (@ 12.5.10.130) on: Thu Sep 6 15:16:25 EDT 2001
  
  for once bharth's postings some makes sense.:):)
  but i think we are all waving good bye to nandhee and Ehsaan. I Hope they still hang around here to discuss with us.
  
  
  
  
  
• From: asdasdasdasd (@ 216.67.3.177) on: Thu Sep 6 15:24:00 EDT 2001
  
  Bharath,
  If you read carefully what I wrote, I was only talking about 'one aspect of genius'. Now, you are obviously right that all the people that were mentioned (IR, Ramanujan) etc could do what they did so well due to their hard work and several other factors. Obviously all these people were very knowledgeable and learned. However, the point was (the Mozart-Haydn comparision for eg) to show their intuitive side which was so strong and which makes them instantly relatable as pure genius ('magic' was just some word I used in that context). The point I was making was that when you start factoring those things like hard work, dedication, reference points etc etc etc, 'genius' becomes unfairly subjective sometimes (as an extreme case, Madonna for eg, works so hard that she has no time to sleep and she also does so many things to keep her image etc etc. She is learning guitar lessons. Now, would you call her a genius for that? She may be working so much more harder than the people that we talked about. POssible?) and that's why I mentioned only people whose intuitive streaks of brilliance outweighed even their own other positive stuff like hard work etc. Some of the other people I think are geniuses that I didn't mention for the exact same reasons are people as diverse as Bartok, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane (who practised his sax every waking minute of his), Stravinsky (he had to really study Bach for many many years to do his neo-classical masterpieces like Dumbarton Oaks concerto), Beethoven (I heard that many Beethoven scores had violent corrections and scratching out etc and so many corrections) etc etc. I don't say that geniuses are only born and can't be cultivated. Nor am I getting into what the experts (neurological, psychiatric etc) say about all things. I only felt like sharing my opinion since I swaw references to Feynman and Miles etc and also I have always been thinking that people successful in popular music have the unfair advantage of being labelled genius for very basic good work (Prince being called a genius, Beatles being called one. These are not Feynman or Ramanujan or Tyagaraja is my point). That's the power of mass media and they always make Gods out of people that feeds them. However, there is also the other extreme where many serious artists or musicians may never ever consider even a valid artist as a genius if his work is in the popular arts. (People in the west for eg, will never consider IR as great as say, Ravishankar (leave alone Mozart) which is rather unfair to him, but that's the price for fame in a popular medium -whereas some academic classical musician sitting in some univ may be more favorably considered to be a genius because of certain prejudiced thinking etc.
  Well, each to his own. Let's not forget that music at a very high level can create very strong feelings in all of us that there are several subjective feelings about and that's the cool thing about it.
  
  
• From: Bharath (@ 192.25.158.12) on: Thu Sep 6 15:49:03 EDT 2001
  
  well! among the aspects that i asked u to weigh was "direction". madonna just has hard work. infact she may not even want to be regarded as a genius and so may not work in that direction!
  
  she cud just be satisfied with the peace of mind she gets with the cause-effect hardwork and be happy that her producers are satisfied!
  
  if u notice a common trait among the so called genius'es they have a feverish passion to do something which is not cause-effect. They try different "causes" w/o knowing or expecting any effect.
  
  and u know what! all of them wud never be known but for the "effect" they brought out! the most self-contradictory aspect in the way the world judges genius is "based on results"
  
  anyway we r digressing. I will quit when I am on a high note with sri....
  
  
  
• From: Anand Mahadevan (@ 192.19.194.27) on: Thu Sep 6 16:13:59 EDT 2001
  
  Sashi,
  Do you think by any strech of imagination Aalavandhan songs were fresh. There was some tremendous scope which was thrown down the drain. I rate this music genre almost on the lines of Guna which by the by had some outstanding/experimental score. SEL have wasted a golden opportunity. Kamal must have come up with some serious ideas which has been dumped.
  None of the songs have any touch of brilliance or flow. I am very surprised that Kamal has accepted this music. For the kind of effort the other technicians have put for this movie, music is a big letdown. If it was Tenali or other commercial kamal crap, I would'nt have bothered much. From the promos this looks like one of those experimental/masala combos bordering on the lines of Guna but with a lot of urban polish.
  
  Shankar Mahadevan is a good singer. Eshaan and Loy are good jingle composers. Lets not drag them beyond this. The 3 together are no great shakes.
  
  
• From: vijay (@ 129.252.25.96) on: Thu Sep 6 16:49:25 EDT 2001
  
  Anand, not to find fault with your views, but alavandhan is indeed a commercial venture. you know, Kamal is trying to earn the big bucks :-) which he lost bigtime after Hey Ram..he is clear about it..Alavandhan, from the looks of it, is just a sophisticated masala movie..
  
  (but right from Aavvai shanmughi or perhaps even a little before that, IMO, the standards of music in Kamal's films have been slipping..you should note that even a "commercial Kamal crap" like Kalaignan or Singaaravelan had some pretty good hummable numbers..)
  
  
• From: Anand Mahadevan (@ 192.19.194.27) on: Thu Sep 6 17:10:57 EDT 2001
  
  Vijay,
  We will have to wait and see but the promos do indicate that Nandhu character has shades of Guna's idiosyncrasies. Probably kamal would have gone a bit wiser and not made it vey depressive like Guna. The fact of the matter is, as a music composer, the scope widens to experiment with a subject like Aalavandhan.
  As regards to pre-1993 kamal movies, thats a different ball game as far as music is concerned.
  
  
• From: MS (@ 129.252.25.204) on: Thu Sep 6 18:49:10 EDT 2001
  
  AM /Shashi - Welcome back.
  
  Anand:
  
  SEL are not just jingle composers as I could infer from their score in Mission Kashmir. The songs are definitely very melodious and for once I was happy to hear something fresh in hindi film music after all those recycleable wastes generated by the so called composers. The regular pattern in the hindi movies is:
  
  (1) take a tune in natabharivi scale (C minor) or Shankarabaranam (C major)
  (2) make an atrocious microtone free, un complicated, dejavu tune
  (3) ask Kumar Sanu to sing and elevate it to heights of mediocrity.
  
  Thankfully music is non-materialistic and hence junk songs do not add to the pollution of Bombay. Else, by now it would have been suffocated to death.
  
  It took a khamoshi to break that recycling trends and now it seems like SEL have a good base to reckon. Mission Kashmir's songs are definitely good and since aaLavandhaan is just their third or fourth venture, I will NOT underrate and ditch them. Kaatuuppuli song is definitely impressive although the prose type songs compel me to stop my player.
  
  Guna - a great experimental venture ? Can u brief me as to what was so greatly experimental about it ? We had three songs to remember:
  
  (1) unnai naan ariven - a regular waltz beat with raga keeravaNi which has been used umpteen number of times by IR earlier. nothing new
  
  (2) paarththa vizi - a song with a distinction of being in a rare raga - paavani. But what was experimental in it ?
  
  (3) kaNmaNi anbodu - IR has given many songs like this. this shuffle beat pattern has been used in many songs earlier and I woudl not want to list them since that woudl constitute heavy digression.
  
  Call Hey ram experimental. I come along with you. Try GURU. Try my dear kuttichaththan(3D). IR has infused fresh breath into these songs.
  
  I would rather listen to SEL in more movies before I form a complete opinion. It is heartening to see them participating in discussions here and taking our comments seriously. IMO, great spirit ! Not many MDs would stop to listen to what their fans / critics (faceless) have to say. And they are not short of talents either. Shankar is not just a good singer but a great one. In fact, he is among the very few who have excellent control over voice in the high notes and clear pronunciation.
  
  Let us wish good luck to them and wait to see how the songs and BGM have been done in the movie. Comments are always there to pass and they are ready to hear too..but we can wait for some time before dismissing them in haste :-)
  
  
• From: srikanth (@ 24.4.253.20) on: Thu Sep 6 18:54:13 EDT 2001
  
  well said ms...,we need to wait little more before we conclude anything about sel.
  
  
• From: raju (@ 62.6.129.246) on: Thu Sep 6 19:03:19 EDT 2001
  
  i wanna take the discussion a bit further pleez.
  re... Steely Dan. how does one relate in a non-American(or even non-european) country to a song like 'reeling in the years' or any other famous songs by Steely Dan. i shared a flat for a few months witha famous pop musician and they were heavily influenced by steely dan!!! who liked steely dan outside america???!!!!!
  pleeez let me know...thanks
  alavandan has been postponed in LONDON yet again after a premiere date of 30th august was promised. god elp us all
  
  
• From: Krish (@ 209.110.182.92) on: Thu Sep 6 21:10:20 EDT 2001
  
  Hmmm... 'Kanmani Anbodu' is not experimental??? Experimentation need not be just in the sounds/beat and tune... It can also involve the song structure... How many times have you that kind of a song and still popular to the extent this one was...
  
  By the same token, even 'Desingu raja' from Dum Dum Dum has a bit of experimentation... If you listen to it carefully, you'll know what I'm talking about.
  
  BTW, this was just a tangential comment. I concur with most of the other stuff that you wrote, MS.
  
  
• From: rf (@ 205.188.193.174) on: Thu Sep 6 22:39:31 EDT 2001
  
  AM and Vijay: Reasonable observations from you both. However, music is an ocean and we should not have everybody sitting on the same portion of the beach looking at the ocean as IR once said, i believe. But, we must reconcile to that view, ocean - music, beach - composer. marina beach, florida beaches, chicago beach, la beaches. composers may not view the ocean of music from the same beach area beech beech mein. This wide as the ocean issue reminds me of the famous joke of a Bengali friend of my Father who was visiting Madras and said, Mr. Ilayaraaja Fan (in lieu of my real surname) why not we go to the Marina bitc+ and have some sandbitc+es... i mean, look at the beach now. then of course, there was my Father's Gujurati colleague who voiced his desire too. He said, Mr. Ilayaraaja Fan, I would also like to look at the osun... Yes, I believe they had a good time talking at the Marina...
  
  (;----)
  
  
• From: Karthik S (@ 164.164.82.29) on: Thu Sep 6 23:27:52 EDT 2001
  
  Small digression on Aalavandhaan the movie per se, sicne someone was discussing about it...posted by someone from another forum...
  
  "i saw the promos of aalvandan recently and noticed an animation of abhay throwing a woman rather violently against the wall/ floor. while someone is fiercely defending kamal and someone else said that possibly the story is like a movie called link, i have this to add: the animation is a direct inspiration of oliver stone's violent movie 'natural born killers'. there are scenes of animated violence interspersed in the movie and kamal's bald head definately looks inspired by woody harrelson's character in natural born killers. nbk is arguably the most violent movie ever made and was banned in india.
  but even before nbk, in the alan parker film "pink floyd: the wall", there were scenes of animated violence, which really had an impact. hopefully it has a similar effect in aalvandan. and i hope it isn't as self-indulgant as hey ram."
  
  

---

List all pages of this thread

Post comments