Sachien, Music Review.

Wish you all a very happy Tamil New Years day.

Sachien, it is not a typo, may be yet another superstitious way to spell "Sachin" or a safe way to avoid being sued. This movie is one among many gang bang Tamil New Year day releases, hence it was a prudent move by the director to name the movie as Sachin oops Sachien, a house hold name in India. People will remember this name along with other famous movies. This is also a Vijay’s movie, hence it will be filled with punch dialogues, quick camera and mind blowing CGI work. Music composed by the new comer Devi Sri Prasad.

Point number one, I appreciate Vijay, Why? When Mani Sharma stepped into the Tamil field, his first Major break was for Vijay, they gave the hit “aL thOta boopathy”, which was the trendsetter to todays 6/8 craze. It is very nice of Vijay to work with new composers. Most big time stars try to stick with well experimented or favorite composers. Nothing wrong in this approach they do it just for convenience sake. However Vijay permits the director to choose new composers, this is a big deal today in a commercialized Tamil music environment.

This album competes with 2 big wigs in the rig, Vidhya sagar for Chandramuki and Ilayaraja for Mumbai Express. Already I have discussed both of which Mumbai Express is technically a superior musical package. Kamal and Ilayaraja takes Tamil ears to the world of Jazz and Big Band. I am not here to compare composers. Everyone has their own potential and talent.

Let us move on to the songs. For any album the first song is the entry point that makes people to listen further. It should simple kick ass. In this album the cute hook vocals, Jinaku Jinaku gin gin chiku Jinaku Jinaku gin --- SACHIN captured my attention. [I hear, Sachin nu peru sonnale porume, Jalra adika I would not hesitate.]. Shankar Maharaj Devan opens with a bang. Sings few Hindi words like the natives and adds his usual power chorded vocals. Song has all the ingredients for new Tamil song, Catchy pallavi, “vava va en thalaiva va”, guitar and slap bass/main acoustic bass, peppy foot tapping beat loops etc. However the tune becomes kind of boring after few minutes why? The element that I did not like in the song was the percussion and drums, they are a turn off or to put it politely, they sounded cliché to me. I expected some more real hand percussion that would make the song more powerful. The programmed drum loop makes it kind of monotonous after some time. I expect more natural sounding drum programming. A good drum programmer will do it well. I felt Devi Sri Prasand could have experimented with some more hand played “local” percussions. Frankly in short genuine “Tara Tapata” sounds would add another 10000 watts to the song. But he works on requirements!, The package from Vijay & co. comes with fast cuts, colorful choreography hence that can take the song to an all together different dimension.

Next song Kanmoodi Thirakkumbodhu, composer himself sings the track. First the Plus point, this song does not contain any wanted sounds. It is paced nicely like Mustafa Mustafa don’t worry Mustafa. The 1st BGM has some Spanish guitar works, if you let me second guess, lots of A.R.Rahman or may be Haris Jeyaraj influence however everything on the better side. Turn off, when the singer goes off key in few places. Anateris pitch correction could have saved some portions of the track. Another [interesting] thing I noted was the chords, “80s style” similar to Eurthymics “sweet dreams “ [ 1 and -3 Aminor and F major combinations). In spite of few flaws in singing, frankly I liked this song. I would play it on my Van stereo while driving to work stuck in the DC traffic. It is metered so well.

Malathy screams and opens the next song “Gundu manga”, Male voice, “Jassie Gift” the Music director who scored for the 4 student movie. He brings in new accent to Tamil songs, good or bad, few more songs will decide, Malathy is flawless in her pitch. But it is about time that she offers some variety. Over all a folk song set be a dance number. Standard 3rd song in any movie, hopefully the choreography has the potential to take over KTV for next few months.

Dai Dai Dai Kattikkoda, opens with a Synth harp + Koto tones, with English introduction, same beat meter as of Gundu manga. Words are really different. “Vadi en Bombay Beeda, odaikatha Goli soda” some might not enjoy it. However I did, it is typical Vijay song where Devi Prasad is put to test. He comes out with the latest fashions of adding Caribbean rap vocals etc. The First four lines of the Saranam though the words are kind of ok, the tune then on is just a filler to complete the song. Prasad should have worked more on this melody lines. 2nd BGM had some programmed drums then on song becomes dragging and predictable, when I was about to skip, the pallavi came back again for the last time, here there are some backing vocals, and I wish this was added through out the song.

Instrumental Theme, totally a synth Euro music with few Indian instruments, it does not fall into my taste of instrumentals.

Final song, Vijay opens with Tamil, Hindi and Telugu dialogues for his fans. And he presents them with some more goodies; Yes He sings the song and comes good too. The words are once again typical and impressive. Vijay goes off key in few places however it is Vijay, so no one will really care.
Check out the words. Some Tamil purists will not like it, but I liked it. Very similar to Vadi vadi en natukatai . The second BGM song speeds up and comes back to the normal [adlib from the song]. This track is a typical Tamil song you could find around today. I bet this song is going to rock every Tamil channel, why? Vijay & Co.

Did Devi Sri Prasad do it well? Well yes and a no. However I feel youngster has taken the pressure quite well. Three songs in the album definitely have the potential to be called as hits. Added to his advantage Prasad’s music will be packaged with the “Vijay” charisma. Bottom line after all, this movie competes with other 2 big movies. We need to wait and see what the majority decides, Will I get the CD, largely depends on the combination, the song video and the movie.