We’ve all had arguments over the years on who is greater- Sachin or Dravid(Sachin), Rajnikanth or Kamal Hassan(Kamal), SPB or Yesudas(Yesudas) and Modi or Nehru (Kidding!). But, some of the bitterest arguments I have had were around Ilayaraaja and AR Rahman. I have been on both sides of the argument. There is a timelessness and ease in Raja’s brilliance which can never be matched. However, at times, Raja comes off as less polished in delivery as Rahman. While no one really sounds as good as Rahman, he does on the other hand have this tendency to be overwhelming. There is a surfeit of things happening that our senses failing to perceive the complexity collapses the soundscape. This is why I believe that you have to listen a few times to any new Rahman song before we can truly appreciate it. I have come to realize that each one is great in his own way. We are blessed to have had such stalwarts producing fabulous music in the last forty years. A decade separating them, AR Rahman is as much of leap in terms of style from Raja as Raja is from a MSV. They are quite different from each other and even though they are contemporaries in a sense, Raja from Annakili was not operating in the same place as Rahman in Roja. Any comparisons would be moot- completely pointless.
But, when has that ever stopped us? If we were stopping pursuing pointless ends, we might as well start with the next breath. That said, one needs a frame of reference if you are going to measure their disparate output. So, here is an arbitrary frame of reference that my “genius” friend Sriram came up with- Mani Ratnam movies. Mani Ratnam has always been praised for his excellent taste music. He comes off like someone who knows what he wants and is not shy in getting what he wants from his musicians. It is also a reasonable frame of reference. There are 23 movies in total- 10 with Raja and 13 with Rahman. You can gather some fascinating insights from the details. Vairamuthu wrote just one song in Idhaya kovil(1985) and was never included in a Mani Ratnam Movie until Roja(1992). SPB hasn’t sung in a Mani Ratnam movie after Kadhal rojave! Janaki hasn’t sung in a Mani Ratnam move since Thalapathi(1991) either!
This time I have included movies made in other languages and have tried to score the music as it appeared originally except for Idhayathai Thirudathe which is a favorite. Geetanjali is good, but it loses something for me in Telugu. Only because I don’t know the language. I have also tried to show my work this time. I have rated each song individually on the spreadsheet which ultimately makes up the score for the movie. I haven’t tried to rank the songs individually because there is no way you can measure Yamunai Atrile against Yevano Oruvan Vasikkiran. So, anyway here is what I am seeing
|
Movie |
Average of Score |
|
|
1 |
Alaipayuthe |
78% |
|
2 |
Thalapathi |
64% |
|
3 |
Dil Se.. |
58% |
|
4 |
Agni Natchathram |
58% |
|
5 |
Kaatru Veliyidai |
58% |
|
6 |
Bombay |
53% |
|
7 |
Idhayaththai Thirudaathe |
46% |
|
8 |
Kadal |
46% |
|
9 |
Nayakan |
38% |
|
10 |
Ayutha Ezhuthu |
38% |
|
11 |
Pallavi Anupallavi |
38% |
|
12 |
Roja |
36% |
|
13 |
O Kadhal Kanmani |
31% |
|
14 |
Kannathil Muthamittal |
29% |
|
15 |
Thiruda Thiruda |
22% |
|
16 |
Iruvar |
22% |
|
17 |
Mouna Ragam |
17% |
|
18 |
Guru |
17% |
|
19 |
Idhaya Kovil |
6% |
|
20 |
Anjali |
0% |
|
21 |
Pagal Nilavu |
-4% |
|
22 |
Ravanan |
-4% |
|
23 |
Unaru |
-25% |
There was not much to separate the top 5. Alaipayuthe scores over everything else despite September Maatham because every other song is truly great. Thalapathy loses out because of some minor compositions (marghazhithan and putham puthu poo) that no one really remembers. Dil Se loses out because of Jiya Jale. I don’t have the heart to make it a great song. Unaru loses out because it has 2 so-so songs. As we saw in the previous one, Ravanan is the worst asid Pagal Nilavu. The greatest song is probably Yamunai Atrile or Tevano Oruvan or Chaiyya Chaiyya. There are just 3 songs that I hate of the 157
1. Mottamadi (Anjali)
2. Rukkumani(Roja)
3. September Matham(Alaipayuthe)
As always the spreadsheet is here
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jweurTAZ6V4C12E7t82hohvpYcLVa0KmnsrFXtFvUMA/edit?usp=sharing
No comments:
Post a Comment