Re-analysis of IR post 2000

[Hulkster]

I would like IR "fans" to describe what they meant lost hope on IR after the 2000s. Exactly what are the albums that caused you to lose hope, lets see if it is viable or just you guys not liking it personally. This is just to see whether fans really evaluate IR's music properly before saying such stuff.

[rajasaranam]

Hulkster,

Its better you substantiate your questions with valid and remarkable songs/albums from IR Post 2000 otherwise 'Such' fans will be inclined in maligning Raaja without any base.

[Hulkster]

Well instead of naming the albums, I rather ask them to come forward with the albums cause i would like to see what they mean. It really gets irritating. If IR was "dead" post 2000 then could anyone explain how i managed to become a hardcore fan of IR when i started listening to him in 200/5 and that from movies like konji pesalam,mumbai express and so on and so forth. This is a challenge to prove the albums they think are worthless and makes IR go back to the "grave".

[irir123]

In my observation, I see only one general trend post-2000 - a distinct lack of motivation to give something creative in IR's output!

There were a few gems like "thalaatum kaatre"(Devan), the Mumbai Xpress album, the stunner TiS album and maybe a few more - but overall I see IR doing 'eno-dhaano' kind of stuff

His interludes have become increasingly plastic - for instance, until the early 1990s, he was using creative motifs even while using synth stuff minimally - take the interludes in the song 'en uyire vaa' as an example - last few years, the interludes are getting shorter but also lacking the imaginative flow richly found in IR's earlier songs

Even the songs of Nandhalala had nothing to write about in terms of the interludes - IR seemd to have focussed on the tunes without paying too much attention to the ludes - donno why he is doing it

plus, his compositions seem to have a deja vu feel to them

But having said all of this, 2009 seems to have brought something out of him - I have hopes from him this year

Inspite of this, as Vignesh has perfectly zeroed in on one issue, if IR puts all his efforts and comes up with a winner, but fails to package it nicely (i.e., does not market it well), its commercial success and reach may not be viable, which could reflect on his motivation to do better albums - but then that line of thinking might be outside the scope of this thread

[Hulkster]

It is true that IR songs have a little bit of dejavu post 2005 to be exact starting from kasturi maan till maybe kangalum kavipaaduthey(Had some nice bass lines in sollumvarai kadhal and a excellent guitar prelude in maalai nila).

While its true interludes are getting shorter,that may be because of IR focussing on the songs matching the screenplay unlike last time when he would go full flow in the songs. Let us remember that post 1996 IR decided to specially focus on films with good storylines and he has been slowly adhering to that policy with well structured songs.Nandalala is a strong evidence of this.

As for the interludes become plastic i recommend you all to listen to madhu. It may be synth-prominent but it is still wonderful to hear the arrangements. Dhanam had excellent interludes in the songs as well and totally reeks of experimentation. En mana vaalil had one song with spellbinding orchestration.

In fact of all the albums that i have heard so far the one uncharacteristic album would go to chidambarathil oru appasaamy, but even that had a couple of good tunes in nalla vaazhvil and ponna porantha intha paavam with subtle orchestration. Mayakannaadi songs is another underrated version.

I guess people here are becoming unbalanced by the recording style of today's modern songs and become "irritated" when they listen back to IR songs. They fail to even understand the nuances of his songs(the worst mistake a IR fan can make) and overthrow them just because the tunes aint the best(which is appalling as IR is extremely famous for enhancing his songs with his background instrumentation, almost a genre by itself).

The evidence that all these albums are quite good is because i myself became a Hardcore fan of IR after listening to all these ludes in madhu.en mana vaalil, mumbai express, adhu oru kanaa kalaam etc. I still wonder how he does the marathi rhythm combining it with jazz in yeley nee yetti po and the unforgettable percussion dance in muthu muthu. Anyone dares to explain how all these things are supposed to be "dead" when i can get spellbound by these?

[irir123]

Hulkster - interesting points, but let me tell you this - IR did an album called GURU, n that album set a high standard and expectations from fans like me - not IR's fault though!

and after that there was no way we cud accept anything substandard from him - no doubt he gave a hey ram a mumbai xpress and of course TiS, but somehow he messes up with either his arrangements when it came to synth stuff or something is wrong somewhere - even the percussions dont sound deep - the synth drums he uses r so hollow n irritating - and is it tat he is not using the diverse set of ragas he used to before, n hence the feeling of deja vu - is he repeating some raaga ? for example "chanda mama raave" from mallepooviu sounds similar to "kallai irundhen" from Uliyin osai!

cheeni kum(the sound of real percussion in the second interlude of 'baatein hawa'), mumbai xpress all had real percussion effect, but by n large, IR edhayyo engeyo kottai vittuttaar!

i think the real problem with IR's outputs thse days, is tat he is associating with the wrong ppl - releasin his albums thru all kinds of strange labels

by n large, having set standards like he did before, it luks like IR is simply demotivated to reach those standards again

[ananth222]

by n large, having set standards like he did before, it luks like IR is simply demotivated to reach those standards again

I've been listening to IR's old collection of lesser known films.. IR used to do about 40 movies a year. These included excellent hits, some memorable ones, and some totally forgettable ones - this was in even the 80s at his peak. Even among the hits, different people would vouch for different movies - someone might hate a movie/song I liked. IRs strength is his variety in sounds and style, so there are bound to be hits and misses. By the same count, some of his recent movies were good, some were misses. its just that hes doing fewer movies so fewer hits.
It is a totally encouraging sign that ppl who liked UO didn't like NK or NL or vice versa - it means IR is back to his strength of providing variety. 5 years later, we will only be talking about the memorable tunes.
IMO if you take the ratio of "spell binding songs" to "total songs composed" in the period post 2000, it wouldn't be very different from the same ratio in the 80s. (of course based on your own idea of "spell binding")

[Hulkster]

The fact remains that as fans we should not expect every album to be like GURU, it really depends on the film IR is doing. Its quite astounding that he can still produce magic for whatever situation he was given to compose.

The thing is even if IR scores 10 magnificent Inetk-300 word albums in a row, we all know he can achieve this as he has proven before. Question marks over his talent and class are the worst sort of reaction i expected from IR fans themselves. Even IR has said he has achieved all he wanted to do in FILM music way before ARR came in.

As for chanda mama raave, it isnt exactly like kallai irunthen as although the familiar haunting feel is there, the overall instrumentation(Piano magic) gives us a different mood. I could still listen to it over and over again just for that orchestrational brilliance. This is certainly no waning artist.

Demotivated, Not aligning himself is the familiar grouses of today's IR fans. I wonder if they know that the man himself is just not interested in promoting himself. As i said before he will only do if he thinks there is a challenge for his composing extraordinaire. Not for the sake of marketing himself. He does have alot of ideas about various forms of music but he at the same time is one who hates promoting music(Mallepoovu post-audio release interview speech). To convince him we must not tell him "Sir we want you to be known all over the world" but rather "Sir we want to hear what you can do with x genre and fuse it with y genre".
There must be a purpose like the angelica musica festival which gave its returns to needy people.

[kiru]

Recently, I came across a IR hits CD in my stash and played it in my car with the bass and treble turned all the way up. I got a very vague feeling of deja vu. Pardon the affront, if you take it that way, it all sounded like Rahman songs. And these songs are iconic hits of IR. These songs were infectiously rhythmic and groovy. THe rhtymic texture is maintained throughtout the pallavi/charanam, if not in the interlude itself.
Below is the list of songs and what I feel is the major rhythm component -
1. Germaniyin - bass line
2. kaadhal oviyam - bass line
3. puththam pudhu kaalai - loop/groove (notice the chalangai metronome)
4. meen kodi thEril - bass (?) + loop
5. andhi mazhai - bass
6. iLamai enum poongARRu - bass
7. oru thanga radhathil - bass
8. raamanin mOhanam - bass
9. idhu oru pon maalai pozhudu - bass
10. poongathavE thaazh thiravaai - drum loop (congos+mridhangam)
IR aficianados might say, it is not right to look at a song only from the rhythm perspective, that these songs have good chords, interludes, harmonies and possibly even strict adherence to one single rAgam. But it is undeniable that these songs are catchy and groovy and will be a total hit even today.
So somewhere along these years, the bass guitar, tambourine and other such rhythm instruments have taken a backseat in IR's songs. I dont think they all vanished overnight or just after 2000. I would like to see a timeline of the kind of songs and rationalize it to a conscious if not unconscious shift into a pattern that fell out of favor with the masses.

[irir123]

kiru- "constructing a timeline for the de-evolution of compositional elements from IR's music" wud perhaps be an apt title!!