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 !