Music Review: Sivaji

 

SIVAJI

AR Rahman strikes an impressive balance between creativity and the commercial necessities of a Super Star album.

APR 8, 2007 – A CURSORY glance at the credits for Sivaji – AR Rahman’s newest collaboration with the director Shankar – reveals the two words capable of sending quavers up the spine of the most stout-hearted Tamilian: Udit Narayan. The singer, in his previous work for Rahman, treated the Tamil language as no more than a staff of sugarcane. He bit into it and spat out the stuff that wouldn’t sit in his mouth and by the time he was through, all that was left was a mangled mass of chaff, with barely a trace of the sweetness once in it. And yet, it’s Narayan who lands the loveliest song of the album, Sahana. The loveliness must have been the charm, for he leaves this lush melody unscathed for the most part – though the way he rounds off his vowels still makes you wince. And thankfully, his slack is picked up by the marvellous Chinmayee, who, clearly, can will her voice to traverse any octave, reach any pitch, approximate any timbre (just contrast the brassiness of Tere bina to the little-girlishness of her longing here). Rahman’s clever, little flourishes – a mridangam roll here, whispery backup vocals there – more than compensate for the overfamiliarity of mood, built as the song is on a haunting piece of background music from Dil Se, the one that felt like an icy gust of wind coursing through the Leh landscape.

This is a sad, wistful motif, and it’s no surprise that it segues even more organically into Sahara – a sad, wistful variation on Sahana. Vijay Yesudas navigates pretty much the same terrain as Udit Narayan, while Gomathi Sree launches unexpectedly – and rather beautifully – into Male Manivanna, from the Thiruppavai. (This inclusion from classical Tamil literature, interestingly, isn’t a first for either Rahman or Rajinikanth; the former slipped in Kanrum unnaadhu into the opening of Theendai from En Swasa Kaatre, and the latter, of course, first laid eyes on Shobhana in Thalapathy as she muted the boisterousness of the Raakamma revellers with her chanting of Kunitha puruvamum.) The prelude to the far more dance-ready Vaaji vaaji has Oriental trills leading to an exquisite four-line melody that makes you imagine the contours of an MS Viswanathan stanza as outlined by a cello – but this burst of beauty is short-lived. The focus shifts almost immediately to a relentless rhythm, which functions as foot-tapping anchor to a pleasant – if unexceptional – tune sung by Hariharan and Madhushree.

What would an AR Rahman album be without Blaaze launching his latest assault on our eardrums! And so we’re asked to endure The Boss – an unholy mix of rap and distorted guitars and a staccato set of beats, the only audience for which may be alienated teens with a predilection for purple hair, nipple rings and Death’s head tattoos. A song named after the attribute we most associate with Rajini – Style, an instance of Rahman’s experimentation at its eccentric best – comes off much better. As performed by Rags, Tanvi, Suresh Peters and Blaaze, it’s the sound of an eighties electro-pop band like Kraftwerk slowed down to a crawl and layered with raucous bursts of hip-hop before the whole thing were rendered in Japanese. (That’s no joke. They may just as well have combined the music release with a game-show contest, assuring anyone who can decipher these lyrics a couple of free opening-day tickets. But I did enjoy the conceit of the imagery, Oru koodai sunlight, as if solar energy were something that could be doled out in basketfuls.) A third sop to the yo! generation arrives in the form of the terrific Athiradee, which is full of the kind of pop-culture mishmash that no Shankar soundtrack is complete without – references to Rajini’s earlier roles (Thalapathy, Billa, Ranga, Baasha), Hollywood (Roger Moore, Eddie Murphy), even Cuban socialist icons (I was most impressed by Vaali’s cheerful shamelessness in rhyming “Castroâ€? with “maestroâ€?). The song itself – stylishly sung by Rahman and Sayanora – is equally eclectic, achieving its effects through everything from the brilliant backup vocals to the innovative rhythm patterns to the beefy twang from a guitar that appears to have wandered in from the recording rooms of a spaghetti western.

At some point, though, the most avowed rule-buster has to bow down to hoary tradition, this being a Rajinikanth film after all – and Rahman does that with Balleilakka, where Na. Muthukumar writes what are surely the most ironic lyrics ever for that sub-genre of the Tamil cinema song situation known as the Rajinikanth Introduction Number. (Would that acronym to RIN?) Koovum cell phone-in nacharippai anaithu / konjam silvandin ucharippai ketpom, he advocates, asking us to switch off the nagging cell phones and tune in to the idyllic sounds of nature instead. But even if you overlook the massive percussion that drives this thundering piece – Rahman smoothly layers in a variety of drums – just what idyll can one expect in the cinema halls as the Super Star strides across the screen in slow motion? The only hope for silence in this situation is that the audience pauses to recognise the other star of the item, the magnificent SP Balasubramaniam – who, undoubtedly, is the poster boy, at least in South India, for men of a certain size. With the indefatigable energy he still brings to his singing, he convinces you that the way to immeasurable greatness is to begin your day with a plateful of bondas.

Copyright ©2007 The New Sunday Express

Posted in: Music: Tamil Cinema