Movie songs in a jiffy !

Today, I choose to talk about a very popular music composer - Harris Jeyaraj. Many hail him as an extremely talented music director which I would have agreed to if this discussion was held a few years ago. Of late I don't know what happened to the good musician who gave us damn good songs like "Vaseegara" and "Moongil Kadugale". Maybe its a case of what my brother mentions - "talent drained out" (except he uses it to refer to Rahman to mock me.. different story.. lets not go there). I strongly feel we have seen the best of what could have been a good music director. Nowadays he just sits there and tries to think of what songs to copy next. If it was just some inspiration he took from a different song, I wouldn't sit and blog about it but listen to these BLATANT lifts our guy has done :

1.
Pachaikili Muthucharam - Karu Karu Vizhigalal - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMun7ymNmr8
Westlife - Hit you with the real thing - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XS_2nvnA-Gw

2.
Unnale Unnale - June Pona - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDo_9_sEpd4
Blue - All Rise - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HhXcrJMZXY

3.
Anniyan - Stranger in Black - Sorry, no link available !
Passion of Christ - Resurrection - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6qdqqjv8gQ (0:55 onwards)

4.
Vaaranam Aayiram - Adiye Kolludhe - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNzOZdk5Z0A
AC/DC - Love Bomb - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Komfvllxgzc

5.
Vaaranam Aayiram - Mundhinam - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EQ_8xi6ZuU
George Micheal - Faith - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viPWb3ieH6o (0:45 onwards)

6.
Vaaranam Aayiram - Oh Shanti Shanti - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt_lIpnHrXk
Red Hot Chilli Peppers - Other side - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaeF00sqW34

There are quite a few more such blatant and direct lifts which our man has done. The fact that I have listed three songs from his latest movie show how bad it has become. Almost every music director will have such a list of accusations thrown on his face (including Rahman) but then most of them can be shrugged off as inspiration or a very distant link/coincidence. I haven't seen any music director who started off so promisingly come down to this level or copying directly. Sure, Deva and Hindi music director Pritam have copied loads too but then they have never started off as a promising talent source.

In cricket, when we see players (who were legends once) start playing badly, we demand their resignation. I feel music directors are no different. When they start composing utterly pathetic tunes or worse yet, copying blatantly from other sources, movie audience should demand their resignation. Such plagiarism in music shouldn't be tolerated. And when I recall the conversation I had in my St.Joseph's classroom with a bunch of enthusiastic Harris fans (back in 2003) who rained praise on him and declared him the ultimate challenge to Rahman, all I can do is laugh !! The immediate image that comes to mind is the Energizer battery ad where all other motorized bunnies fall flat on their face while the Energizer bunny drums and rolls on !

An experiment with music...

My entry in the blog today is about Rahman's music. Almost all of my friends know that I am a Rahman fan and so, many views in this post might be considered biased by a few people. All I know is that what I have expressed below is something I deeply believe in.

Tons and tons of praise have been showered on Rahman's talent as a music composer and will continue to happen till the end of time which is why I chose a different trait of his to talk about - experimentation. Talk to any fan of his music and eventually the conversation drifts to his evergreen hits like Roja, Alaipayuthey, Rangeela, Taal, Rang De Basanti, etc. But I have interacted with quite a few Rahman fans and not many of them bring up songs like "Ennuir Thozhi", "Varugirai", "Thazhuvudhu", "Ghoomparani", "I miss you da", "Spiderman" etc. I know that of the people who read this post, many won't recognize a few of the above songs despite being familiar with Tamil/Rahman's music. These songs are from movies which didn't make blockbuster status but even then people might recognize the following songs : "Mayilirage", "Azhagiya Cinderella", "Ah Aah" title song, "Taxi Taxi", "New" title song, etc even though surprisingly they are from the same movies as the previously mentioned list of songs!

The point I am coming to is - not many people appreciate Rahman's try at "experimental" songs. The reason why I chose the word is that most of these songs don't conform to the usual - intro stanza.. paragraph_1 .. paragraph_2 .. intro stanza repeat.. end of song format... In fact one such experiment became a run-away hit - "Style" from Sivaji.. That song in Rahman's own words "had no form". But his other attempts have not been so lucky maybe because they didn't have such good publicity as "Style". I feel his attempts along such lines are bold mainly because in such a time frame where people tend to choose genres such as rap (ala YSR) / kuthu beats (ala Vidyasagar) / rhyming lines and illegible utterings (ala Harris), Rahman boldly mixes unknown instruments and strange tunes into a musical treat for the senses. The first time I heard "Style" my reaction was "What the heck ??". But after repeated hearings, I found so many unfathomable depths to the song! But his other experiments are not so lucky...

Through this blog I hope to generate enough curiosity into the albums that such a quality composer gives so that eventually all the songs are listened to, rather than picking only the songs which are instantly catchy. Nobody stands to lose anything by giving the songs a chance or two but not listening to such songs (which I compare to "diamonds hidden in charred coal") is a crime! The reason why I chose to use such strong expressions is that when songs come from an immensely talented composer like Rahman, a one-listen dismissal is unjustified.

I read another blog where the author mentioned that a study shows that certain frequencies of sounds please the senses and he/she goes on to mention that Rahman is probably quite knowledgeable of these frequencies. I'm sure that if they are given a chance, all of Rahman's songs will resonate at the frequencies your senses are tuned to... all I know is that his songs resonate in my head day after day !!

Suresh Balasubramanian

September 24, 2008

Hands off - that's mine!

Everything was fine till last month when I came back from India to resume classes at Texas A&M for the Summer semester. I go to the bike rack and my bicycle was missing! Despite the fact that my bike was old and not in perfect condition, I couldn't get over the fact that it was stolen from my own apartment's bike rack where I had locked it tight. But beside worrying about that fact, I didn't take any action towards getting it back primarily because I thought it wasn't worth the effort. Life moved on...

......... a month later ...............

I walk out of Weisenbaker Engineering Building and see my stolen bike locked to the rack there. I was shocked to say the least!! It was now that it dawned to me that I have the University Police to help me out. I called them up and an officer dropped by the location immediately. He asked me about where and when the bike was stolen and after I gave all the necessary info including some unique things about the bike which I had put in, he asked me the all important question - "Did you file a report with us as soon as you noticed your bike was stolen?". I had to sheepishly say "No, I didn't think that would help". At that point he said "Since you don't have solid proof of ownership and also didn't report it stolen a month back, there is no way you can prove this is your bike but we do honor your claim on it". But then since he understood my situation, he gave me an idea. He asked me to lock the bike again to the rack using my own lock so that the person using it can't get away with it. I did that and also put a note on it asking that person to call me. Later that evening I get a call from a student ('X') asking me why I locked "his" bike. I went over there along with a police officer and we talked to him. It turns out 'X' had bought the bike from a person in the apartment next to mine 2 weeks back. So the police officer came to the obvious conclusion that it was stolen from me and then sold to 'X'. Right now, I was going to be given my bike back but the poor student was out of luck as he had bought stolen property without enquiring about the source.

The officer volunteered to visit the place where 'X' had bought my bike and after a few days they caught the thief and were able to get his money back at which point 'X' happily gave me my bike back. Finally, I got my bike back and 'X' didn't undergo any financial loss though his purchase of a bike at a really good price was gone now. So everything is back to normal but I learnt a few important things from this moderately stressful experience :

1. Never refrain from reporting stolen property. It might be your only claim to get it back later. Also engrave your ID number/phone number on it so that you can claim it later.
2. Do not buy stolen property i.e. when buying something make sure the person selling it to you owns it. Get a signed note from him stating that it is not disputed property if he doesn't have proof of ownership.
3. Never leave your property outside when going on vacation. Lock it up indoors so that nobody is tempted to steal it.
4. For all such things, note down the ID number so that you can trace it if its stolen. eg. VIN for cars, serial numbers for bikes, IMEI numbers for mobile phones, etc.

I wrote this hoping others can learn from my experience and be careful. Remember -
"Fool me once, shame on you... Fool me twice, shame on me." --Chinese Proverb

Suresh Balasubramanian

July 9, 2008