Chandramuki , Music Review.

Chandramuki Audio was out last week and has created massive records in CD sales. When it comes to Songs for super star Rajinee movie, it all about power! Powerful tune, background, singing - everything will come to play. Music: Vidhya Sagar, he gets his long awaited turn to compose for Rajinee movie. I heard all the songs on Raaga.com.

I was impressed by the first song right away, chududa chududa, SPB rocks, at 56 Man! This walking juke box kick ass with the same force he used to, a decade ago. In spite of little reminiscence from Aravua mesa[Dhool], This song is going to top many charts. This track has beats played using Roland Hand-Sonic and other modern groove boxes.

When Vidhya Sagar composes, we can blindly expect justification to the melody. There will be very less cacophony in the name of modern trend. Konjaneram proves this fact. This song based on Bagshree, Sri Ranji and all of its relations, is a very soft number.

Frankly the turn off in this song is Asha Bonsle. She struggles to sing, clearly a wrong choice. We cannot call a retired NFL quarter back to play for a game. He will be whacked alive, Ashaji for her experience she is too good, but for her age hey any new singer would take her on and do a better job. Sweetness in Ashaji’s voice is history to me. Madhu Balakrishnan sounds nasal, but reminds KJY in many places.

Ramkumar producer of this movie mentioned that Ashaji flew on her own expense to sing this track, appreciated, she has close ties to Sivaji production. But as a music aficionado I really don’t care, a nice song from vidhya sagar was screwed up.

Wait, I did find something better in this song. In my opinion, Vidhya Sagar’s weakest link is sound modeling, he picks backgrounds sound that often plays spoil sport. For Example in “Kana kanden thozi” from pArthiban kanavu, there will be a distracting “open hats” all through the song. The song would be same even if you remove the Hi-Hats because the melody had the potential to carry the song. But in this “finally” I hear some good sound modeling and control. He has worked for “Rajinee”, the drum grooves and backgrounds are “really tight and calm”. Nothing in excess or out of place;

Ok enough, let us move on to the next song, a folk number “Athithom”, SPB once again proves his class. The feel for the tune flows through his voice box automatically. I can clearly visualize Rajinee dancing for this number. Basically the backgrounds are “simply” music. The music gels with the melody so well, this song takes me back to the Golden days of Tamil music.

Koku: This is sung by a new voice [to me at least] called Rajalakshimi, I hear beat lags in the groove. May be the low streaming rate in raga was the cause. However once again I am sure I did hear a serious lag and rush in the loops used. A typical song for a selected location where Tippu and Manika Vinayagam chips in, by all means this would be a family song. I would skip the song after the pallavi.

Ra Ra : I really doubt this song is for this movie, Song was in Telugu totally has shades of “Kalayanavasantham” and “Hindolem” Sung by Binni Krishna Kumar and Tippu. Tippu covers the song well and does justice once again to the tune. This is a semi classical number. Second half starts of with some crazy sounds, I don’t get this why add such things to a nice tune. If at all this song appears in this movie, we need to watch and find a reason for this corruption, and some might be tempted to take a cigar break.

As I was thinking that “Rajinee” has not fallen for the 6/8 mania that is going around Chennai, Wait Vidya Sagar takes him deep into it. “Annanoda patu” by Kaykay, Karthik and Sujatha. The regular 6/8 number which reminds of fewthings that which I cannot write about it here, however this is a typical “new” Tamil song, to console yourself least the tune seems better than the other 6/8 numbers.

Finally, what change did Rajinee achieve by getting in Vidhya Sagar, I feel the first 3 songs have clearly filled the cavity that was created due to A.R. Rahmans disappearance.

VS has the talent to do it better, but it is the responsibility of the director to make the right choice. Given the super star factor coupled with song situations and the freedom the composer had Hey! let me tell you, songs are destined to be hits.

Of course! I will get the CD right away.