CD review,.

Few days ago I got the CD of Pokiri., staring Vijay, directed by Prabhu Deva . Music: Mani Sharma

Mani Sharma comes good with tight compositions. Let me go in the order of tracks that I liked the best.

1st “en chella peRu Apple”. My prediction is that this song will come around for a long time for sure. A playful hip hop in “kindof warm“ Sivaranji. And well done Suchitra!, Wow!, Zimply Powerful! Vocals . Her voice gives the song the new dimension that composers would want these days. All the adlibs were well done! And watch for the unique vocals by A.V.Ramanan in this track. I really enjoyed words “en sontha orru otty - enna sweater potuku” by Pa. Vijay!. Very trendy and impressive. Have you noticed this, the word “bull- bull thara” is always present in songs involving Prabhu Deva & Mani Sharma.

Next song that impressed me was “Doli Doli” ,. This track has tight and slow Bangra groove, somewhat similar to aiiiiiooo pathikiche pathikiche. Ranjith - “the vocal power house” totally Rocks. Today vocals is all about the attitude and power, both the vocalists [Suchitra again!] brings the needed attitude to the table. I also felt that the arrangement was also very interesting in this track. Prudent use of vocal slicing, and watch of the smart placement of “Synth Arps” in the second interludes impressed me quite a lot. In the first interlude keep an eye on the solo violin then the sitar part that jumps to few Sindu bharavi notes for few seconds, very tight changeovers. The second BGM the sitar plays 16th notes and compliments the fast paced beat. It is very hard to play such phrases on a Sitar.

Vasatha Mullai , the new trend is to use words/music from old classics, only the first lines are reused. The rest of song was written by Na. Muthukumar. Track opens with a theme music similar to the good old “varAi nee varAi” [piano opening]. This sounded nostalgic to me as I have heard [then] Mani now “Mani Sharma” playing it quite often on the piano. Rahul Nambiyar does the lead vocals. In this album Mani Sharma has remembered to use all his band-days buddies, he has used the services of Krishnamurthy, a veteran stage singer, who use to sing TMS songs on stage. He sings first few lines of vasanthamullai, which is played as vocal slices by sending it thorough various filters and plug-ins. One of the new things I found in this track was the vocals slice at end of the second BGM, very new and I have never heard it before in Tamil. Very good programming.

The song “nee mutham ondru” written by pa. Vijay, Ranjith vocals,. The bass and the song groove dangerously close to kuluvalile. But changes in the middle to a large extent. There is also a remix second version for this track. However I felt the song was missing the width found in the above tracks.

Adaungada, the usual [nee entha ooru] Vijay opening dance number and the mambazam that has a Vaidivelu crying sounds, another cliché number.

Over all a good attempt, we will have to wait and see if Mani Sharma was able to port the fame to Tamil from the mega hit Telugu version of this album.

CD was a worth Buy, recording was simply fantasic.