Maestro ilaiyaraaja news & titbits

[rajsekar]

This is a great news!!!

I was expecting Maestro to cross this milestone sometime this year but wasn't sure about the exact number. Does it inlcude all his Film and non-film soundtracks/ original scores and music albums? He has certainly crossed 1000 if you count the movie sountracks which were never released. What a fantastic milestone and achievement!!!. Maestro needs hundred more soundtracks to equal MSV's crown of 1100 (near approximation based on media reports). The Tamil Film Music Director Association should also maintain the soundtrack numbers for all their members. Do we know the number of Platinum, Golden and Silver Jubilee hits each of MSV and Ilayaraaja? Maestro's 1000 albums have seen many mega hits with few of the movies running countinously for more than 365 days/52 weeks. Platinum Jubilee is 75 weeks continuous running. People would come just to hear the song sequences and exit the theatre after that.

Coming to Raaja's music album sales, do we know how many soundtracks/ albums were Diamond and Platinum? This include sales of all Vinyl records, Cassettes, CDs and digital download streams. The music distribution is India is plagued by so many illegal distributions by phantom companies besides internet piracy which make it difficult to put an exact count of soundtrack sales. For a long time, Maestro had distributed his soundtracks through his own company "Echo" which was also an issue with AVM Audio for AVM Production. Soundtrack royalty brings lot more revenue in the long term as compared to album sales. In US, Diamond album is 10 Million and Platinum is 1 Million while in UK the Platinum is 300,000. As a perspective, Michael Jackson's "Thriller" holds the record for the maximum number of Platinum soundtrack (27 Million). This record is maintained by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Few of the Maestro's biggest soundtrack hits like "Karagatakaran", "Nizhalgal", "Jhonny", "Priya", "Thevar Magan" (I need more space to list all the mega hits) would have sold more than 30 to 50 lakhs each which is 3 to 5 million. Unfortunately there is no official sales numbers from Echo or Maestro's fans. The best selling Indian film album (official record) is Aashiqui with 15 Million units (150 Lakhs). Rahman's "Bombay" combined soundtrack sales in Hindi and Tamil was 12 Million (120 Lakhs) which is his highest
record. Ilayaraaja has certainly smashed these records but we don't have any official confirmation of music sales. This is a sad state of affairs in India. I sincerely hope that Maestro's fans would work on tabulating the official sales number for all his albums and the eaxct count of film/ non-film albums. Maestro himself keeps an accurate count of all his soundtracks as seen from a recent audio release (don't recall the movie name)

Putting Maestro's 1000th album in perspective, here are some numbers for notable music directors (not official and only approximate numbers):
- Chakravarthy - 960+
- KV Mahadevan is 600
- Bappi Lahiri - 500
- RD Burman - 331+
- G Devarajan - 300
- Jerry Amaldev - 300
- Lakshmikant-Pyarelal - 250+
- Shyam - 300+
- Rahman - 200+
- Kalyanji Anandji - 200+
- V Dakshinamoorthy - 125+
- Shankar Jaikishan - 171
- Hemant Kumar - 138
- Naushad - 100 (maximum number of Platinum, Golden and Silver Jubilee hits)
- Yuvan Shankar - 100+