Maestro ilaiyaraaja news & titbits

[teja]

> Maestro needs hundred more soundtracks to equal MSV's crown of 1100 (near approximation based on media reports).


I don't think that is true. Chakravarthy used to hold the record for highest number of albums. (What a pity. 99% of those albums were trash, but let's not get there) . There were a lot of articles on this topic a few years ago. With 1000+ movies, namma Raaja now sits at the top. (Y)

[rajsekar]

RR – Well said. Many of us had enjoyed Raaja’s songs in duplicated cassettes when they were released. I have personally seen rows of music shops (basically cassette duplication service) in Salem, Madurai, Kovai, Erode where Maestro’s songs were played 24x7 in buses, restaurants and road side eateries. The private bus operators in Salem-Erode-Namakkal-Thiruchengode-Krishnagiri triangle are known for their pricey and best boom boxes (Cassette decks with Hi-Fi speakers) who always played the very latest and greatest Tamil hits. The buses too were new and fitted with state-of-the-art audio technology, that Namakkal/ Erode still make the best bus chassis in India, apart from Volvo and Mercedes factory shops.

I did a small calculation to determine the sales of a single soundtrack in 1982. As a rough calculation, each cassette shop in Salem, Erode and Madurai would duplicate a complete movie soundtrack for minimum of 20 times before the master tape is worn out. You can then multiply the number of shops by 15 in a particular locality. Let’s take one of Raaja’s biggest musical hit in 1982 which was “Payanangal Mudivathillai”. The biggest mega hit song “Ilaya Nila” and other hit songs in the sound track should have easily sold 1-1.5 Lakhs cassettes in those three districts of Salem, Madurai and Erode. I am going by the 1981 population of these districts and 20% sales of original cassette. If you multiply 1 Lakh cassettes by 15 for each locality for the cassette duplication, the total illegal cassette sales would be roughly 4-5 Lakhs. The combined sales (legal and illegal) in 1982 throughout T.Nadu would have been easily 6 Lakhs. Now Tamil cassettes were also sold abroad in Sri Lanka, Singapore, Fiji, Malaysia and UK which would bring the total combined sales to 6.5 Lakhs in 1982. As per the Indian Music Industry (IMI) Trust, a Platinum album is 200,000 unit domestic sales (or) 6,000 international sales for Hindi album. For a regional film album, it is 100,000 unit sales for a Platinum award. Hence “Payanangal Mudivathillai” should have easily won multi-platinum sales award in 1982 by Echo Records. The same year (1982) Ilayaraaja gave other multi-platinum Tamil hits – AVM Audio (Sakalakala Vallavan) and “Ninaivellam Nithya”. Unfortunately neither Echo Records nor Tamil Film industry gave away any music album awards or recognition to Maestro. The movie itself had a 526 day run at box-office (Platinum and Golden Jubilee combined). Similarly in 1983, Ilayaraaja gave AVM Audio their biggest box office album sales for “Mundhanai Mudichu”.

At the same time, the Hindi music industry was dominated by T-Series and Magna Audio which kept official sales record of cassettes. Ten years later (1992), Rahman bagged the Platinum sales disc for the Hindi version of “Roja” from Magnasound which sold 200,000 cassettes. Lahiri Music released the Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam versions of “Roja” because Maniratnam decided to do simultaneous dubbed release in Hindi, Malayalam and Telugu for the first time. Mani should have done that for “Nayagan” in 1987. Remember the remake of “Nayagan” in Hindi by Feroze Khan which was terrible and eventually flopped. The year 1992 also saw Ilayaraaja and Rahman being tied for the National Award for the Best Music Score when the Chairman decided for Rahman for his first attempt since Raaja had already received the National Award in 1984, 1986 and 1989. N. Pandurangan (Maestro’s sound engineer) won the Best Audiography Award that year. “Thevar Magan” soundtrack too should have easily received Platinum disc in Tamil.

[krish244]

It seems "Oru Oorla" is IR's 999th movie. Producer is going to release the movie advertising it as IR's 999th movie!

http://tamil.oneindia.in/movies/news...ie-196364.html

thanks,

Krishnan

[Russellyhd]

http://cinemalead.com/news-id-after-...-03-144812.htm

AFTER LISTENING TO ILAIYARAAJA- BALA MOVIE SONG, PRAKASH RAJ MOVED TO TEARS

Ilaiyaraaja is composing the music for Bala's Thara Thappatai and Prakashraj's Un Samayal Arayil. Recently Bala and Prakashraj casually met at Ilaiyaraaja's recording studio for their respective films.

It is said that Bala played him a song which is composed by Ilaiyaraaja for Thara Thappatai and Prakashraj immediatey moved to tears after hearing it. As a matter fact Prakashraj told Bala that he will fall at Ilaiyaraaja's feet for this song, incidentally Prakashraj met Ilaiyaraaja and even the maestro was touched on witnessing the love of Prakashraj and Bala on his music.

[krish244]

IR honored by senior journalists for the recent milestones/achievements IR has accomplished (1000 movies and 9th in the list of all time great film music composers):

http://www.indiaglitz.com/channels/t...le/105266.html

BTW, I am curious. Is this website (http://www.tasteofcinema.com/) popular among hollywood producers/directors? Just wondering what are the chances that IR gets more exposure.

thanks,

Krishnan

[rajsekar]

Krishnan - Taste of Cinema appears to be a new website. The site has been registered in Nov. 2011 in Queensland, Australia. The site's popularity in US, India and UK is shown here http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/tasteofcinema.com Their people list category seem to be accurate (I looked at few of the popular ones). The list is not based on any official survey or voting. At the same time, we don't have any official media sites to release such lists. The list was compiled by Brian White and couldn't figure out whether he is the American actor and producer. I am extremely happy that Maestro's name has figured in the global 25 list. It's high time that his name and talent is recognized in the global arena. In the current media frenzy and hype, any cine artiste has to go over the board to advertise their name and brand. Look at the hundreds of stupid movie awards, festivals and competitions in India to promote mediocrity. Ilayaraja as always shunned the media spotlight and as a result the majority of younger generation think that he is just a village music composer. I was laughing at the comments in the website on why RD Burman, MSV and Rahman weren't included in the list. These folks think that movie music score is just making tunes for songs. Anyway, Ilayaraja doesn't need to go out of the way to advertise his talent and name. His music creation speaks for itself and will continue to do so for many more years. As a comparison, you have to listen to the latest soundtracks in Tamil, Hindi and Telugu which are released almost every week amidst much hype and expectation. What a terrible fiasco!!!!

[SVN]

Why aren't the Indian News Agencies reporting this?

Typically news feed is provided by PTI, IANS (Indo Asian News Service) etc.

While these agencies write about even the slightest gossip as 'news' and release it across all publications and news media across the globe, such feats are never covered.

If someone has a lead with any of the above press agencies, it would be good to spread the word around.

Regardless of fan base and personal choices, as TFM and Music lovers, we need to celebrate this remarkable achievement.

[RR]

Regardless of fan base and personal choices, as TFM and Music lovers, we need to celebrate this remarkable achievement.

SVN, yours is a lone voice in the wilderness! I opened a thread on celebrating IR's 1000 movies here. Hardly a flutter there.

[rajsekar]

SVN - Good question. I was expecting that the group of media journalists who came to wish Maestro will be writing about this great milestone. Ilayaraja fans should also be active in social media to highlight this achievement. I think that Bala's upcoming movie audio release will also be a bigger stage to announce this major achievement. This is a unique milestone in the world of music. Western musicians and song composers typically peak out after 40 or 50 albums after giving some great hits. The 1000 films of Maestro requires some in-depth analysis like a) Hits songs in each album, b) Album sales, if avaliable, c) Box-off collections, d) 100 days box-office run, e) Playback singers who sang the maximum songs (numbers for SPB and Janaki), f) Time taken to compose each album, etc. I am certain that few hard core fans would do more analytics on the 1000 albums.

RR -fans will slowly trickle in. You have to give some time for fans to think of "1000" albums and get that feeling to sink in. We all are getting corrupted by media hype after hearing pathetic copies like "Kolaveri" and "Unna Partha Neram". How are these outright copy tunes being labelled as "Hits" by media? Then Ilayaraja fans should coin a new term for all his popular tunes - minimum three super hit songs per album which is 3000.

[krish244]

The below link says Bala's movie is titled "Getti Melam". Not sure how far it is true.

http://www.4tamilmedia.com/cinema/ci...araaja-s-music

It seems, Prakash Raj was moved to tears after hearing a song from Bala's movie and fell at IR's feat.

Un Samayil araiyl is 1001st movie for IR.

thanks,

Krishnan