Evolution of Tamil Music-Part2

I am blogging again after a month owing to continuous travel. But its great to be back. Here I would like to speak about more music directors who have created memorable melodies in Tamil music.
1. A.R.Rahman-He is the obvious choice after the legendary Ilaiyaraja. Rahman burst into the Tamil music scene in 1992, composing for "Roja." Man what an explosive debut it was!! He took the nation by storm. Until then, we had not heard such a sound that Rahman created for Roja. After that till today, Rahman has clearly shown that he is another maestro. When people compare Rahman & Ilaiyaraja, I just say Raja is like Bradman and Rahman is like Sachin. Both have their unique class. Besides being a fan of Raja, I am a fan of Rahman too. Some say that Rahman has lost his touch but I beg to disagree. He is much better than some 2nd rung composers who keep composing fast songs all the time, delivering nothing but trash. Rahman has created so many magical melodies that, we need another blog to discuss them. Besides his music, what I admire about him is his remarkable humility. If you go to www.rahmantimes.com, you can read his life story, which is so poignant and touching. He has faced so many difficulties to become what he is today. He definitely deserves this and more. I just pray that he keeps giving us great music all throughout his career.
2. Vidyasagar-I feel he is one of the most low-profile and underrated composers of today. His music is a wonderful combination of the orchestration of Ilaiyaraja and the techno-melody of Rahman. Vidyasagar has given amazing music not only in Tamil but also in Malayalam and Telugu. What I like about him is that his fast songs too are quite catchy and melodious unlike theother noisy ones. His melody songs are a class apart. I saw an interview of Vidyasagar in Asianet during Onam and was impressed with his simplicity. Many of his melodies are classical and they still appeal to the common man. Like Ilaiyaraja, he has also taken classical music to the masses. His Malayalam melodies are quite different from the Tamil ones and they show the other side of this great composer. He has the unique skill of having Carnatic keerthanas with wonderful orchestration in many of his movies. I still wait for every music release of Vidyasagar, as I feel he is another genius.

Talented Music Directors not getting their due

There have been a lot of music directors, who I feel have not got the chances they deserved. The first one who comes to my mind is Ismail Darbar who composed great music for Hindi movies like Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam and Devdas. There are not many movies to his name as he did not get many opportunities. His music for both the mentioned films were awesome. He treaded a path which many modern Hindi film composers did not-classical music. His classical numbers like Albela Sajanwa(HDDCS), Silsilsa yeh chahat ka, Bairi piya, Hamesha Tumko Chaha (all from Devdas)were wonderful.

The second composer is the extremely talented Sharath, who has composed for a few malayalam movies and one Tamil movie. His songs were technically brilliant and the orchestration was too good. Still, he has only a handful of movies and a couple of albums to his credit. His tamil song in June R, Mazhaiye Mazhaiye (an amazing rendition by Hariharan) still haunts me. Harish's blog has a very thoughful post on Sharath.

From the Tamil music industry, Ramesh Vinayagam has not got the respect he deserves. He has composed great melodious numbers (some Hindustani classical ones too like Kasturi Manirame in Azhagiya Theeye). Some of his good songs apart from the former one were Vizhigalil Aruginil (Azhagiya Theeye), Enna idhu (Nala Damayanthi), Nenje Thullipo (University) and En Swasathil (Jery). All these are wonderful songs and Ramesh also has a nice music style (not Rahmanish; I don't mean Rahman's style is bad, its just that some composers sound just like him, I too love Rahman). Ramesh's songs have an Indian sound apart from having good percussion and bass guitars.

In retrospect, what I felt especially in the case of Ismail and Ramesh is that they got lost because of the overemphasis on "dance-based songs." Directors want popular and peppy numbers which don't have much melody but only loud music. In Tamil, there is a craze for "gaana" songs, having 1 or 2 gaana songs is fine but almost all the songs fast. The solitary slow song is dull, boring sad number(where the hero cries for his mother or lover).

The trend is slowly changing today. Music directors like the legendary Ilaiyaraja, Rahman and Vidyasagar are putting their foot down saying they would want to compose more melody-based numbers. They have every right to say that because they should be the ultimate decision-makers as they are the creators of the music, though the situations are given by the directors. There are innumerable numbers of these 3 genius music dirs which are very melodious and yet satisfy the situations.

My only wish and prayer is that we get to hear more melodious music than the fast-paced ones.