Gentleman [The Gentleman], Kaadhalan [Humse Hai Muqabala], Indian [Hindustani], Mudhalvan [Nayak - the real hero], Boys, and Anniyan [Aparichit: The Stranger]. What do these films have in common? Director Shankar and Madras Mozart: A.R Rahman [Anniyan's the exceptional work of Harris Jeyaraj.] With a blockbuster hit maker in his resume, he lifts up the people's expectations with his magnus opus entitled, Sivaji the Boss. Starring none other than Superstar Rajnikanth and Telugu heroine, Shriya Saran, it's produced by AVM. Saravanan of the famous AVM Productions. Now you wonder how I took the so-called music of Sivaji?
Let's be frank here, Rahman doesn't give us hits like Chikku Bukku, Pettai Rap, Uravasi, Telephone Manipol, Shakalakka Baby, Saiyaan, or Sa Re Ga Me. Heck, it's a pale comparison to Shankar's superhit album by popular Kollywood MD, Harris Jayaraj who churned hits like Remo and Kannum Kannum Nokia. In fact, it's no Roja or Bombay either.
To sum things up, Rahman doesn't quite gives us the stuff we all loved and hummed to in the 90s. It's purely a rap album filled with maybe 1 or 2 hummables. Better luck next time Rahman saab.
Athiradee kicks off with singers Sayonara and the mozart himself. Honestly, you have to have supersonic hearing to understand lyricist Vaali's words. It's unbelievable that it's a Rahman composition and yet, he's stumbled upon the likes of America's favorite music genre among the teens. It's more or less a pass muster.
Rahman does make up entirely with Baleilakka sung by none other by SPB, Rajni's lucky mascot. Unfortunately, Rahman borrows heavily from Vidyasagar's Devuda from Rajni's mega-blockbuster, Chandramukhi. The female voice doesn't have depth and fails to impress me. Moving on....
Sahana is probably one of the decent tracks in this album. The only downside, it's rendered by nasal nepali, Udit Narayan. Known for his infamous tamil diction, he does that infamously well here but "Tere Bina - Guru", Chinmayee, makes up for Udit's horrible diction. Probably of the better bgm so far. Maybe a tribute to Kuluwalilee from Muthu?
Vaaji... by Hariharan and Madhusree is a average track. Hari, who's ranked as one of ARR's protege's, fails to keep up with Mozart's beats. Madhu tries as hard to be the south Alka Yagnik but she's got a shrieky kind of voice which makes the track unbearable.
Sahara is probably the BETTER version of the song in comparison to Udit's style. Why? Vijay Yesudas makes a perfect lead male singer in TAMIL WITH SUPERB DICTION and his voice will tell you the shades of Dr. Yesudas. Gomathishree does well in her debut as well. For a very short track, one wonders whether Yesudas got gypped for the dictionkiller that is Udit.
Style and The Boss are nothing by noise. Ignoring the barely understandable wordings and annoying rap music, it's a skipworthy no doubt.
Say what you want ARR-Rajni apologists, Rahman fails to impress me with his comeback in tamil. Even his Sillendu oru Kadhal was beautiful in comparison to this atrocious album. Perhaps next time, we could get some of your Roja stuff or better yet, GURU? Please? Shankar should've stayed with HJ for music and have ARR for BGM.
Rating: *1/2
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1 comment:
well written review nickraman, about the inflated, over hyped Shivaji songs. It is just a below average effort by ARR . Even a lesser MD like Dhina's or Imman's songs would interest us if they are repeatedly aired on most of the channels. That is what will happen to Shivaji songs and people will start hyping ARR as the best gift to music industry. hm...... ellam neram dhaan
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