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ARR=longevity?

Topic started by R.Balaji (@ 129.130.140.38) on Mon Sep 14 11:09:34 EDT 1998.
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

Hi guys,
Recently I hada a chance to go india.-madras.
i could see the dominance of ARR in the film industry.After hearing "Uyuire"
I had to give up.
Man it was a very good album.I am an ardent fan of IR.If you see for the money worth then
you can be sure of it if you buy ARR's CD's.
He has lifted our tamil music to some different height whihc nobody has done before.I am
sureIR can never come up with unique tunes and music.He is great in his own style.I have to accept this.
I could see a major problem with ARR's music--longevity.That's it.ARR's music doesn't stand for a long
time.how many of you are hearing 'chikku pukku rayile"now.
Most of songs lack that long life.Since it is different it stands top on the racks for sometime and
we tend to forget it.ARR is trying to cover all the indians and become popular and for that he is
compromising
on his music.
I knew we have beaten this topic many times but I wanted to convey that ARR has brought the downfall IR.

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Responses:

• Old responses
  
• From: ravi (@ gateway7.ey.com) on: Tue Sep 22 17:38:26 EDT 1998
  
  If the stuff is good it will last longer if not it will fade away. Likewise, ARR's stuff is only catchy but not of Quality. Hence the shorter life.
  
  
• From: ravi (@ gateway7.ey.com) on: Tue Sep 22 17:39:16 EDT 1998
  
  If the stuff is good it will last longer if not it will fade away fast. Likewise, ARR's stuff is only catchy but not of Real Good Quality like IR or MSV. Hence shorter the life of ARR's Songs.
  
  
• From: Shashi (@ eed02990.mayo.edu) on: Thu Sep 24 19:33:02 EDT 1998
  
  Interesting topic!
  
  How does one measure longevity in art?
  
  I have another perspective to this discussion. Everybody should agree with the basic tenet that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. The eyes of the beholder or more correctly the ears and brains of the tamil music fan also varies; not only from person to person but also within the same person from time to time.
  
  Examples for this phenomenon are plenty:
  1. As kids most like big sounding crackers (the atom bomb and the lakshmi vedi etc). But as we grow up most of us like the quiet yet beautiful flower pots and the colourful fireworks display which we get to see every July 4th in the US.
  2. Most kids prefer some kind of fastfoods to regular three or four course meals and this also changes for most people with time.
  3. Most young people enjoy wild dancing/disco/bars etc but they grow out of it gradually and prefer to enjoy a quiet evening watching the sunset, or start enjoying poetry or go fishing etc.
  
  These are not just the result of aging/maturing because a minority of "so called" adults prefer the lakshmi vedi's, the fastfoods and the disco. Hence I cannot explain why these changes occur, but statistically they do seem to occur.
  
  One can extrapolate the same examples to music (and for that matter art) too. Taking my own example I loved catchy beats when I was young and gradually grew to appreciate intricacies in rythm. This led to learning about structure of music which led to more involvement in the free flowing unstructured forms and now the most enjoyable portion of music sometimes are those raga alapana's by artists before the proper rendition of the kirthi itself. It is really interesting to even follow my own 'evolution' in musical terms.
  It is not to say that I never enjoy the drum beats anymore. I do appreciate that once in a while but constantly looking for more intricacies and variations in the rythm so much so that I sometimes dismiss even complex rythms as just repetitions (which they are) of combinations of simple beats. Yet the free flowing one and a half hour long rendition of a raga by Chaurasia or Bhimsen Joshi is so much more gratifying because of the endless creative potential it holds.
  
  Enough about myself. The point here is both the atom bomb and the flower pots have longevity; the fastfoods and 3 course meal have longevity. As kids grow and as their taste changes new kids take their place and keep both the disco and classical music alive.
  
  So both G Ramanathan's, MSV-TKR's, IR's and ARR's music can exsist simultaneously and all of them catering to different age groups and hence be considered to have longevity in their own regards.
  
  
  
  
• From: Rex (@ lab-158-60.circa.ufl.edu) on: Thu Sep 24 20:06:05 EDT 1998
  
  ARR's music is liquor. bOdhai iranginAAl eppadi irukkumO athu pOla thAAn ARR's music. For that matter how many of us are listening to his 'great hits' like Gentleman, Thiruda Thiruda, etc?
  
  However, all around the globe people are always listenting to tunes of MSV and IR, just because they had their own stamp of originality and created tunes suitable to our taste.
  
  
• From: Udhaya (@ 205.218.142.217) on: Thu Sep 24 20:16:12 EDT 1998
  
  Shashi, If everybody took your posting to heart, this TFM forum would actually be invigorating, but the cycnic in me knows better.
  At the least we should post Shashi's posting at the start of every thread that either exalts or tears down a specific artist, style, or genre at the expense of another.
  
  
• From: Mano (@ by1.genie.uottawa.ca) on: Thu Sep 24 20:30:41 EDT 1998
  
  Shashi:
  It is true. But it is not true that As kids grow and as their taste changes new kids take their place and keep both the disco and classical music alive. Two decade ago, disco was very popular and it is not that popular anymore. It is possible that it may recycle sometimes later.
  
  
• From: Sriram Lakshman (@ sf-dnpqs-289.compuserve.net) on: Fri Sep 25 00:32:34 EDT 1998
  
  Shashi, I appreciate your broad outlook.Let us hope for the sake of serious TFMers ARR does not stick to a particular trend or catering to a particular kind of audience alone.
  You spoke about the growth of a music listener , but I think the same holds good for artistes also. IR and MSV showed tremendous growth or atleast a change in terms of their perception of music and the results were there for the world to see, endless variety.I think the secret is, IMO that they did not adhere to any particular school of thought and they were not in awe of their own creations of the past. ARR's music ,in the minds of people for whom listening to music is more than just a filler (like most people in the DF) may not last long if the businessman in him keeps overtaking the artiste in him .Apologies if you consider this a digression.
  
  
• From: N.C.Ramakrishna (@ spider-we061.proxy.aol.com) on: Fri Sep 25 01:37:03 EDT 1998
  
  I dont agree with Balaji that ARR has made downfall of IR. You know the new water will push aside the old water. It is not that new water is greater than old water. .The time for old water has come to go. It is the time which is the reason.
  
  Of All the MD's after IR, ARR has definitely created enough sensation and in some people's view, took over IR by throwing him out. IR dictated the people with his genius music and mesmarised people a lot. But now people tasted a lot of variety and now they are in a postion to demand and digest something new variety of music. ARR is able to do that.
  
  Longevity though definitely depends upon individuals taste , we have to see the view of majority people ARR's music not completely like fast food music. Where you listen and forget it fast. The impact of situation in movie also matters in the music longevity. If the music is of take it easy type definitely people will take that song easy and forget it fast. But songs like chinna chinna asai last long. Also Its depends upon the tune you choose which depends of your capability. As long as a MD is capable of doing various tunes and can keep up his pace according to taste of listeners he can live long. I think ARR has that capability to keep him in this field long enough.
  
  Asha Bhosle in a recent interview in Rediff told about originality in MD is lacking in young directors except ARR and one more MD in HFM. But if ARR can take care of repeting music of his own he can last long. He has to keep with the pace of changing taste of people.
  He should avoid repeting like he has done in Album Vandemataram. The tune of the song with NFAK is similar to one in Karuthamma. Similary if anybody observed the BGM in Roja comes as a song in Indian. If you hear a song and feel you heard it somewhere, you cant enjoy the music. This repetition creates a doubt that he lacks something which is not good for him.
  
  
• From: Deepak Chandran (@ 202.54.111.80) on: Fri Sep 25 05:48:40 EDT 1998
  
  wow
  jeans was superb but uyire not as good as that
  any way i appreciate arr's music and he's my
  favourite for the present. Of course IR was the
  best. I agree. But long will live ARR's songs
  also.
  
  
• From: shankar (@ webgate0.mot.com) on: Fri Sep 25 06:16:12 EDT 1998
  
  deepak,
  They haven't ,till date.Let's hope for the best :-(
  
  
• From: Shashi (@ eed02990.mayo.edu) on: Fri Sep 25 15:56:18 EDT 1998
  
  Hi again
  
  Mano--when I meant disco/dancing/bars I am generalizing for the so called "trendy" things.
  
  Regarding the creative potential of ARR, I think it is too early to judge. There is no doubt that his compositions tend to resemble each other. But, that is what happens to any artist. If you have seen 10 M.F Hussain paintings and 10 Picasso paintings you are most likely to identify a given unknown painting (between the two).
  
  This phenomenon is what we call "individuality" of an artist. Now the problem becomes even more difficult. How should we then recognize CREATIVITY in a particular new composition by an artist yet at the same time discount the artists INDIVIDUALITY?
  
  I dont have an easy answer or explanation. Judging creativity is very subjective and hence the plethora of discussion in this Forum.
  
  Moving on, there is one other fact I want to put forth. I have always felt that art has to reflect culture. Culture varies not only from place to place but also from time to time in the same place. Hence if music reflects culture then by definition it has to change with time.
  Sometimes the changes are subtle and sometimes quite radical but in reality it is always changing.
  
  So, I guess when somebody talks about longevity they are talking about something that can be enjoyed at all times. To my knowledge art cannot be and should not be one of them. Sure, the 'therukoothu' and 'bomalaatum' were classic art forms but do not reflect the 'current culture' any more. (Please do not read this as one cannot enjoy therukoothu or bomalaatum--the key is one cannot enjoy therukoothu/bomalaatum all the time and one needs variety) The one unifying theme here is that all art forms are nothing but expressions of life--simply put--they are all languages. And as all languages do, they express emotions/feelings/experiences of life. Therefore both the therukoothu and the cinema may be potraying the same story but the language is different.
  
  Now let me go back and try to answer the question about judging creativity. Since we just concluded that art is akin to a language which potrays emotions/feelings/experiences a good critic of creativity must have in my opinion at least must have experienced a variety of human situations--birth, death, joy, sorrow, love, lust, hatred, jealousy, pain, agony, longing, separation, losses, gains etc etc etc..... The list is too long and more you have experienced the better. The critic must also be able an emotional and a person who can feel with "his heart" (whatever that means!). Again, all these are just my guidelines and they may not agreeable or true universally. Most important of all a good critic should be open minded and should be free of bias. This last part is a difficult clause to satisfy. Everyone by their own individuality acquire a bias (just by being an individual as opposed to the concept of 'The Borg' in Star trek) and hence have their own likes and dislikes and so become fans of an artist willfully or unknowingly. The critic is also an individual and this should always be considered in relating to a critic's judgement.
  
  I think I'll stop my ramblings here. Will continue one of these days more about art itself.
  
  Bye
  
  
• From: Krishnakumar (@ giasmda.vsnl.net.in) on: Fri Sep 25 16:12:11 EDT 1998
  
  Topic should read
  "Arr!=longevity"
  
  

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