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Is TFM in a vicious cycle of degeneration?

Topic started by rajaG (@ 208.24.179.211) on Tue Sep 26 15:43:14 EDT 2000.
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

I have checked the archives and for some reason a topic with a similar heading is gone!
So here's is some food for thought.

1. Actors like Ajith, Vijay, etc commanding MDs to copy from "English CDs" and set them to Indian lyrics.
2. MDs like Deva, Sirpi copying left, right and center, in situations excluding item 1 above.
3. Bad pronunciation of singers.
4. MDs like SAR repeating the same tune over and over and over......you get the point (and many times in the same film)
5. ARR not putting any effort in re-recording at all- merely playing the songs in the movie with slower/faster versions.
6. ARR, Srikanth (Deva's son), etc blatantly indulging in lip-synch activities. Other lesser known artists, engaged in karaoke singing. While this does not directly affect TFM it speaks for the lack of confidence in the talents of the artists.
7. Many occurences of really stupid lyrics - though most of them may be blamed on the director/producers adamant insistence or same boring situations.
8. Absence of thespians who could inspire Kannadasan, TMS, SPB, PS etc to give their best.

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Responses:

• Old responses
  
• From: fan (@ 216.190.255.35) on: Wed Sep 27 11:53:45 EDT 2000
  
  How can you say watching mtv is not a positive note, might be for you. , This cannot be generalized.
  
  Your argument is like blaming IR for erotic number by silk smitha/kamal in moodram pirai.
  The movie would have gone 250 days with or without that song. It is balamahendra's idea to add it in the movie; it applies to Humma humma also.
  
  Song shoot:
  In olden days (ms, gnb days) it was more live recording,
  Singer themselves acted with musicians behind the camera.
  When play back singing came up, things changed and directors began having big sets in studio.
  As time progressed directors went to man made spots (famous:Sathanoor dam) and shot the songs. Then people like sridhar stepped out of tamil nadu, took the camera to simla, even other foreign countries.
  Then people like BR took it villages in our own tamil nadu, now people like shanker are doing great job in shooting a song, using modern equipments etc.
  
  From my short note above you can see how picturisations has grown!
  You simply told no comments!
  
  
• From: Fan (@ 216.190.255.35) on: Wed Sep 27 12:07:02 EDT 2000
  
  rajaG :)
  1. Msv had talent, nothing could be done by mgr himself,
  2,Deva lacks certain things,bows his head.
  
  btw: who told this ajith/vijay information ?:)
  
  Your lyrics logic in 80's is wrong, there are tons of songs with total absured lyrics.
  
  Using sequencers is not like a type writer, need to have a good knowlege to do Sequencing.
  Also Sequencer does not play by itself, some one has to feed the score by playing it, anything cannot be step recorded. RolandA button amukina patta,can you tell me which button! :), I have 10+ roland gadgets with me none have this feature.
  
  All these "button press" or "monkey typing something" are used just for argument sake
  
  IMHO: 30% of the current mds might use this so called wrong tatics, I wish see the rest 70% who really work hard.
  
  MDs like vidhaya sagar, bharadwaj, mani and many more m sit and work in the studio for haours together on every track they record.
  
  Tamil film music has grown a lot! and is growing.
  
  
  
• From: fan (@ 216.190.255.35) on: Wed Sep 27 12:12:08 EDT 2000
  
  and if we you want do discuss more on this , you can call me :)
  
  
• From: aruLaracan (@ 134.124.159.71) on: Wed Sep 27 12:31:03 EDT 2000
  
  kArthik,
  
  some of the people who post here are extremely talented. they could easily outshine the "stars" of tfm. they have chosen not to. so, you see, besides being a programmer/teacher/engineer and musicians, many of them have a hobby of engaging in discussions with some "kids" in this forum. (i am trying hard to be not my usual sarcastic self!)
  
  fan,
  
  most (actually, all) of what you have enlisted has to do with technology (and techniques to some extent). this has nothing to do with the core aspect of quality which is creativity. (btw, i consider shankar as the ultimate curse to tfm; his inane picturizations make us (tf) the laughing stock of the movie community. he is a great marketeer a la gates, no doubt about that! when i was in india this summer, i "happened" to watch a lot of songs on the plethora of channels; two songs captured my attention because of their picturization - mAlai en vEdhanai in sEthu and OranjAram ushArayyA ushAru in kAkkaich chiraginilE. these had a glimpse of quality, all imho.)
  
  
• From: UV (@ 134.113.200.35) on: Wed Sep 27 12:32:50 EDT 2000
  
  I think music composing at this age is and has become easy. I can manage without a big troupe.
  If i want some natural sounding,say a violin solo or something i will just call only that person to play and track it accordingly.
  Editing is also so simple with software like cakewalk just cut and paste the sections.
  For rthym there is alreay a thousand ready made pattern over that i can establish my own loop on that. But inspite of all these advances we get only trash music in TFM expect for ARR.
  And its totaly false to say only synth.music is success you need good brains to work on these stuff thats where ARR scores heavily over others plus able to give good melodies.
  But what kind of change/trends have these MDS made. To name a few MSV after that IR now ARR but others MDS havent done anything new they are just the followers and never leaders..
  So its time for a change can we expect one very soon.
  And BTW the music knowledgable MDS in present TFM are very rare we dont have those Sankarabharanm Viswanath among us..
  
  
• From: fan (@ 216.190.255.35) on: Wed Sep 27 12:42:57 EDT 2000
  
  ---->out of topic.
  arul: :))))))
  while watching a song in video, i dont bother about the MD. You seem to....the two songs you told are nothing great in shots.One song did not comeout at all. mmmm...some things never change and cant change,
  
  btw:do you know shanker is going to be in your good books soon!...(lots of things are being worked out (since the 3 letter musician is very busy).
  
  
• From: Udhaya (@ 63.89.188.115) on: Wed Sep 27 12:54:07 EDT 2000
  
  Interesting thread and comments falling all over the map. Let me do my part. The difference in music is similar to watching news today and listening to news on the radio 25 years ago. With CNN, the breadth and depth of coverage is so amazing that we come to know of the smallest civil war in the planet. Does this mean that the world is a lot more hostile now than it was 25 years ago? Proportionately speaking it isn't much different. 25 years ago we didn't get all the coverage.
  
  In music, today there are a number of venues to sample music ranging from the corner tea shop to MP3s on the internet, and the usual suspects inbetween such as cable movies, TV, CDs, etc.
  
  With internet at our disposal we are aware of so many lousy songs out there (I hear songs such as "Mami sirichcha malgoavaa" at least once while browsing for new songs). So our awareness to the stench out there is greater. Crass songs have always been there, in the 50s and 60s comedians sang frivolous or musically silly songs, in the 70s, TFM had club dance sequences with fat vamps gyrating to nasty music. In the 80s we had silk smitha and a host of other unmentionables who accompanied lousy disco songs. In the 90s and beyond we have the likes of Deva and his brothers singing outrageous stuff.
  
  Granted there are more bad singers out there (you know who they are) but there are also many good singers out there with unique voices and good pronunciation:
  -Unni Menon
  -Unni Krishnan
  -Srinivas
  -Sriram
  -Shankar Mahadevan
  -Minmini
  -Harini
  -Yugendhran
  -Swarnalatha
  -Anuradha Sriram
  -Chitra
  -Sujatha
  to name a few.
  
  And this list grows every day. Compare this to the 80s when you just had a handful--SPB, SJ, VJ, KJY,and MV. The play field has been blown open and the percentage of songs skirting mediocrity has increased but a steady stream of good songs still come out and you have to be a discriminating listener to find them.
  
  
• From: rajaG (@ 207.43.195.202) on: Wed Sep 27 14:48:06 EDT 2000
  
  Udhaya: Interesting! Hariharan pEr kaaNaama poodchEy!:-) (Oh pronunciation la goodhals aa?) Many of the singers in your list have collectively rendered about 5 songs per year, and you know about them exactly because of the reason you have outlined - internet, MP3, etc. I am not saying they are bad (especially most of the ones you have listed out) but let us not compare them with SPB, SJ,......except Chitra and Sujatha in your list. Hey! I have a very selfish interest in seeing the list of new singers everyday and happy that it is so. Anyway, if you go through my list in the heading, I did not comment on the introduction of new singers - I just talked about the ones with bad pronunciation. I know I will not get any arguments from you on that topic.
  
  
  
  
  
• From: rajaG (@ 207.43.195.202) on: Wed Sep 27 14:51:10 EDT 2000
  
  Fan: Ajith um Vijay um Deva va kushboo idly kadaila mirattaradha naa ennOda kaNNaala paaththEn:-)
  
  
• From: rajaG (@ 208.24.179.201) on: Wed Sep 27 15:10:20 EDT 2000
  
  Fan: Maybe the current MDs take a lot of time and spend a lot of effort in completing a song. But it is something like this - Melody and orchestration 20% of the time and 10% of the effort; balance time and effort is spent on getting new sounds. I am still talking about MDs creating something new. Copy adikkaravaaLa paththi pEsa vEndaam:-)
  
  
• From: fan (@ 216.190.255.35) on: Wed Sep 27 15:14:23 EDT 2000
  
  RajaG
  that 30% effort is enough, thats all is required to get into the top postion.
  
  
  
• From: Udhaya (@ 63.89.188.115) on: Wed Sep 27 15:56:43 EDT 2000
  
  RajaG,
  Personally I prefer every one of the female singers in my list over keech-keech Janagi any day, but that's another debate for another time. The prevalence of all these singers, that they even made their debuts in TFM is good news to me. That there are MDs like Vidhyasagar, Bharathvaj, Yuvan Shankar Raja, and S.A. Rajkumar out there is also good news according to me. I don't care how many bad songs these guys give, their good songs will be in my permanent collection. That Deva gave a "Solayamma" is enough for me, if it took him a hundred bad films for every good film, I'm still happy about the one good film because the 100 bad films don't affect me in any way. That there's a "Pudhu Vasandham" or "Surya Vamsam" is enough for me to have SAR in the picture. Many may have forgotten Agosh (Tholaivinilae is one of the best composed songs of the last 3 years), Philip Jerry, and Sivaji Raja--all were one or two hit wonders, that's irrelevant to me--I have thier works and will cherish them forever.
  
  When it comes to TFM there are 20 to 30 good songs every year. Some years there's a bonanza (like last year). To me that's good. As long as there is 30 good songs added to my library, my consciousness, every year I'm happy. During a musical drought, I dig into my existing collection and when there's a worthwhile song I hunt it down and collect it.
  
  When you look at it from my way, every year there are more good songs to listen to. And in your process of searching for good songs if you come across bad songs, overlook them. A trend is essentially short lived--a few months, a few years. Many feared the rise of Suresh Peters, has anyone heard from him?
  
  There are many contenders but only a few winners. The volume of contenders has changed but there will always be winners even if they get lost in the huddle. The responsibility to differentiate the genuine article from cheap imitations is on the individual listener.
  
  
• From: aruLaracan (@ 134.124.159.71) on: Wed Sep 27 15:57:39 EDT 2000
  
  digression
  hi srikanth,
  
  talking about song picturization, but for these two songs and more in vaLLi (i really enjoyed the ennuLLE song picturization), no song made in the nineties has grabbed my attention. it has nothing to do with iLayarAjA. (i try avoiding watching songs composed by him for the fear that i might start hating them!) if you cannot tear away iLayarAjA from those songs i mentioned, it's either your problem or it's ir's vishvarUpam that you could not possibly miss :-)) (btw, i don't have to and am not going to justify my credibility or explain why those songs are picturized well!)
  
  i haven't heard from rAjA that there are some plans as what you have suggested. if it happened, shankar might learn some basics in film making.
  
  please do not reply to this. i will not be checking tfmdf for the next ten days! (hayyA jolly! :-))) )
  end digression
  
  i don't know if it's relevant here. the introduction of "classical" singers, imho, is affecting tfm. nithyasree bungled up all the three songs she sang. hariharan finds it extremely hard to control his gamakams (the only song of his i liked was thenRalaik kaNduk koLLa mAnE where he had delivered measured sangathis - a great job indeed). bombay jayashree, tho' sings well, bungles up in pronunciation. tfm in light music at its core. can carnatic/classical singers do justics to it?
  
  

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