Popular music vs Experimentation

**MADDY** · 17th October 2006, 04:47 AM

ARR has given a lot of swashbuckling songs in 90s much to our delight.......simple, catchy tunes, straight forward rythms, very friendly arrangements, likable vocals.......this was the mantra of ARR in 90s till taal maybe.......after Taal, he was exposed to Bombay dreams,WOHE,LOTR........now his music has completely changed......his style is so different from other MDs who cropped up in his trend.......but is this too much experimentation helping him??? imagine a jazz song as a title track for a popular hero's movie - i dunt think any other MD has the b***s to do this now.......but the end result - it wasnt popular........i also felt the kennyg style interludes in NYN song did not reach the lower crust ppl........Majaa song had such a complex tune (atleast for me) that ppl. didnt like it.....even in RDB he had xperimented a lot but luckily movie clicked and songs became a hit.......there are other countless examples where he has given amazing scores and yet hasnt come out successful...best ex: Fanaa - hindustani alaap in a disco song is not the stuff a remixer can pull off.......but all these are going into a heap of garbage and this garbage of experimentation is growing so huge that it will bury the man himself one day......

as a HCARRF i really dont know which way he should go - is it the safe bet of popular songs or gamble of experimenation/innovation???

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**lancelot** · 17th October 2006, 07:36 AM

i think he should mix them up. few experimental songs and a few old nice music stuff in an album.

right now i think he is experimenting i lil 2 much. but then thats just my openion

hehe

**Dragun** · 17th October 2006, 09:19 AM

I voted experimentation, though experimentation and popular appeal are not mutually exclusive. Its the experimentations that made India take notice of him with Roja and with his other films.

At the core of it, are not the songs from popular albums like Roja, Kadhalan, Dil Se, etc. experimental?

**Sanjeevi** · 17th October 2006, 10:23 AM

Anywhere, I always like innovation

**Shankar** · 17th October 2006, 10:28 AM

An established composer like ARR should go out and experiment...Whenever he's done that it has come out well...IMO, the SOK title track is a fantastic Jazz piece which most tamil folks wudn't have listened to and I would rate it better than the popular munbe vaa en anbe vaa.

His experiments with TT was a roaring success...He should stop giving stupid scores like AA/NEW and start working on albums like TT and Boyz.

MDs like Raja and arr have blind followers who would love whatever their MDs offer them, so, why not initiate people into such genres and educate and refine their tastes ?

**ajaybaskar** · 17th October 2006, 10:46 AM

Originally Posted by lancelot

i think he should mix them up. few experimental songs and a few old nice music stuff in an album.

right now i think he is experimenting i lil 2 much. but then thats just my openion

hehe

I think this is the correct proportion. If ARR composes 5 songs for a movie, he can try new sounds and tunes for 2 songs and can use cnventional ones for 3 songs. In SOK, Munbae Vaa, Machakkari and Ammi midhichachu were conventional ones and the others were innovations.

**MADDY** · 18th October 2006, 04:23 AM

Originally Posted by Shankar

An established composer like ARR should go out and experiment...Whenever he's done that it has come out well...IMO, the SOK title track is a fantastic Jazz piece which most tamil folks wudn't have listened to and I would rate it better than the popular munbe vaa en anbe vaa.

His experiments with TT was a roaring success...He should stop giving stupid scores like AA/NEW and start working on albums like TT and Boyz.

MDs like Raja and arr have blind followers who would love whatever their MDs offer them, so, why not initiate people into such genres and educate and refine their tastes ?

excellent points but too much experiments doesent go down well with ppl.......ppl. should understand what he is doing......i really get a feel that ARR sometimes gives music that his fans too find it hard to understand..........also Shankar, commercial success is like a necessary evil......without which you cannot survive.........how long can he survive by pure experimentation....

i guess SOK was a good example - he can mix innovation and pop music together......but he should reserve some songs in a album just for commercial purposes and should not experiment with them......this is MO anyways.....

**ajaybaskar** · 18th October 2006, 10:32 AM

Yes maddy, i completely agree with your point. Thing is that ARR is known in the field for his experimentation. People like YSR, Vidyasagar move along the milestones set by thalaivar. You can see a lot of similarities between Pudhupettai tracks and WOHE tracks.Thats the power of that man.

**Scale** · 18th October 2006, 02:10 PM

When you seriously follow his career every album, songs has got utmost experimentation... Only the script, actors & picturisation makes his song popular. So Mine is Option B always!

**rayan36** · 18th October 2006, 06:59 PM

its the new things he brought to us in the begining that makes the songs popular such as Roja, Gentlemen, Bombay....the new mix of instrument, singers, the way the song goes...........I can still remember when people CONDEMN chikku buku railey when it 1st got released......and slowly the song became an anthem of radio stations, teens, youth.......everbody....it's all because of the new and fresh of music & Rahman himself goes global because of his way to try something new