25. ENGIRUNTHO AZHAIKKUM EN GEETHAM

[vijayr]

I was just claiming otherwise to points made earlier to the effect that IR drove HFM away from TN. I am saying it is not entirely true. Many sections of the college/urban audience (I have personally observed from several of my classmates) continued to listen to a lot of Hindi hits in the late 80s/early 90s. I am not sure how much percentage of the audience prior to 1976 claimed to listen to only HFM, but I guess the percentage was small (restricted mostly to cities)

[senthilv.com]

eden:



Senthil

[vijayr]

Anyways, most of the points listed above by all posters are just opinions and not facts. Unless otherwise we have some form of opinion poll done around 1978 or 80 as to how much percentage of the audience preferred TFM/HFM we cannot come to any hardcore conclusions. Every big MD starting from GR to ARR have changed the listening trend and have created a tremendous local impact, this is not just limited to IR. When ARR appeared in 1992, all the craze for weak albums like Aashiqui or Saajan died down amongst the urban audience in Chennai, even if temporarily. So even ARR can be credited to a certain extent for driving out HFM's influence

[eden]

It's a myth again to equate Raja's success with success of folk music.

He did have his share of great folk hits, including those for BR, no doubt. However, his music for most movies for the mega stars during his peak -Rajini & Kamal- and lesser known stars like Mohan, pratap pothen, karthik etc always had more westernised scores than any folk. Though Raja's folk sounds brought him into reckoning and made people look at him initially, it was his capability to handle western / carnatic music with competence / skills to fuse them and present them in an attractive way packaged with mesmerising instrumentals that brought him wide recognition and appreciation, IMHO. That way he set more trends than one - not just a machAnappatheengaLA trend but also a nAnE nAnA trend, a paruvamE pudhiya pAdal trend, pon mAlaippozhudhu / pani vizhum malar vanam / andhi mazhai trend, iLaya nilA / poongAtru pudhidhAnadhu / rOjAppoo Adi vandhadhu trend etc.

Dismissing Raja as a folk trend setter is like telling Bill Gates is just a dos guy...

[eden]

"I am not sure how much percentage of the audience prior to 1976 claimed to listen to only HFM, but I guess the percentage was small (restricted mostly to cities)"

vijay, I lived in a hamlet during that period, with a population of <500...there were only 4 households in that place who could own a record player or a spool-cassette player and they had no Tamil songs

I observed similar trend with many of my relatives who lived in towns like virudhunagar, pollachi, palladam, tiruppur, palayankottai, dindigul, thanjavur, trichy & madurai who owned music systems having only bobby , yadon ki bharat & the like - strictly no tamil songs. Why, even some of the radio listeners used to only tune to `radio australia' to listen to `international top 10' and stuff like that...(similar observation was also made by many of my college mates with the IR phenomena in the early 80's as we used to discuss this a lot - hours and hours analysing...)

Hence prior to '76, it was definitely not a big-city or college-hostel ONLY phenomena IMHO.

I do not discount the impact by ARR as well. This you can see from my post. I agree it's a mistake usually done by HCIRF's and I'm not one. I like and admire IR's music but hate to idolize / roll-model him or any cine person.
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IR's wave (tsunami?) included some strong community influence as well. Some more pointers to cultural influence post-IR in TN by TFM (don't dismiss them as a technology thing as technology is common for TN, Kerala, AP, Karnataka and other parts of India as well):

-tea shop music (not a big phenomena elsewhere like TN)

-bus music (definitely a TN thing...In Kerala, the only routes having bus music are those connecting TN, elsewhere considered nuisance...even while travelling in these routes keralites from other parts of state used to be grumpy...I traveled in Karnataka and AP too quite a lot in bus but no music. Don't dismiss this as a govt. transport thing, in TN even govt. buses had to have cassette players, all these point to the influence / force of TFM)

[vijayr]

I dont think anyone claimed that Raja is just a folk trend setter. A sizeable portion of the urban audience continued to listen to HFM even after IR's entry, in spite of his westernized scores. Many Hindi movies ran well in Chennai and elsewhere and their music was quite popular too. I am not sure of the comparison in percentages of audience claiming to listen to ONLY HFM before and after 1976. Most of whats stated here(including mine) is just hearsay without backed by concrete numbers or facts. Myth is stating that Raja stopped HFM influence/listening completely. I have seen a few people here commenting along those lines and thats untrue. In their initial years MSV/IR/ARR made the local audience listen to them in complete attention. As years went by and their music became more familiar(or monotonous) interest shifted a little more to HFM. It happened to MSV in the late 70s, happened to IR in the late 80s/early 90s and right now Rahman himself has moved to more HFM.

[eden]

"Myth is stating that Raja stopped HFM influence/listening completely"

-I agree with you vijay. However, the fact is people stopped telling `I only listen to RDB, abba, boneyM etc....who'll listen to tamil music'.

This is my first hand experience and not hearsay

[eden]

Another trend change by IR:
One of the trends in the pre-IR era was associating songs with MGR-Shivaji by the public by and large, even associating the songs with their political ideologies...not so much with MSV-KVM (I myself had to remove so many songs from my MSV list after coming to DF as they belonged to KVM, V Kumar and many others), although Kavingar KD had a better recognition than any of the MD's prior to IR and so were TMS/PS...

There's no such ownership question in the post-IR era as the music shop / recording center will have IR's / ARR's picture and people started listening / buying music on its own merit / MD's performance and not because it was a MGR song. (Sad to say, this is slowly being reversed by mediocre MD's now...)

[vijayr]

"There's no such ownership question in the post-IR era as the music shop / recording center will have IR's / ARR's picture and people started listening / buying music on its own merit / MD's performance and not because it was a MGR song. (Sad to say, this is slowly being reversed by mediocre MD's now...)"

That was more due to the "hype" era which started in the 80s and took newer meaning in the 90s. Things were different in the earlier days. MDs were unassuming, never insisted that their face be splashed in posters or cutouts be made for them. They quietly went about doing their job. Its unfortunate that they didnt get the credit they deserved while the actors stole all the fame. Even in IR's era there were Kamal and Rajni hits and so on, but the MDs got more attention.

[Manisekaran]

Dear Friends,

The Hindi song influence matter seems to have stirred the hornet's nest. All seem to hold strong views.

Taste is something personal. I listen to all songs from all MDs. I was not a serious listener of IR's songs untill I was called upon to produce a show on his songs. in a span of three months, i read widely and listed some 150 songs of IR in which I was able to fathom the depth of his intellegence in music. Then I discovered him to be the greatest genius in recent times. But studying all these MDs had shown that they are great in their own ways. When one is praised it may appear or perceived that another is being supressed. It is a relative situation.


My worst nightmare has come true. In my own observation, the most sensitive threads had always been on Ilayaraja. I was reluctant until some IR fan asked me to contribute on him. When I started I did express that this should not turn out to be a clash between the factions. Now I am seeing the faction is already well placed in this thread. When I started on KVM, there was a well culculated move to distract me. Now I see this happening here. I express my views freely. Whats harm in that? Readers can agree or disagree with me. But to persecute and slaughter on my views over and over is very unfair.

I dont want to be seen as the cause of split. I thought of giving most of the 150 songs with some message. I feel I am not allowed to do that.We all have some profession to concentrate on. I have mine. Posting here is just to share some knowledge I have. I had equally gained.

This is a well thought of decision. Certainly not an emotional outburst.

So, dear readers, thank you for being with me, and most importantly correcting me.

Dear TFM Teaam, thank you for sparing some space for me.
Let the winners be the winners. I admit I have lost, and lost miserably. Now that I have gone , you may all continue from where I have stopped. I am going to write the entire articel in my local papers.

Sorry, it is a painful decision.

Manisekaran