Posted on March 5, 2017
livemint spoke to me about 25 years of Rahman, and a small portion of that chat has been reproduced in their latest weekend issue.
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Baradwaj Rangan 
Iswarya
March 5, 2017
Broken link, BR.. Just like the cartoon post.
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Madan Mohan
March 5, 2017
Link works for me. Nice article. One thing that struck me while listening to the Rangoon songs is Tippa (which is a rehash of a theme he did for Alice in Wonderland) was infectious AND bold and rocking in a way the rest of the soundtrack wasn’t (which seemed to really labour to get to the point). This somewhat applies to Rahman’s contemporary work vis a vis his 90s work too. Up to the 90s, rhythm was still the anchor and driving force of light music, whether in India or the West. That is no longer the case so you have textures or ambience driving music which doesn’t immediately lend itself to memorability (but goes well with our current listening while doing an assignment/on the move etc habits). That may also explain the continued popularity of kuthu paatu genre in Tamil music because it at least has a solid groove to keep the audience hooked. Zingat is a hit here in Mumbai and it’s just a very typical Marathi party song.
By the way, were you the only one of the famous fans who mentioned a 2016 Rahman track as the favourite?
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praneshp
March 5, 2017
@Madan Mohan: What OS/browser? I’m going to pick another laptop from the junkbox and see if this shows up there as well. In the words of the great Ganesh, its a bloody tragedy.
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Aran
March 6, 2017
Wow, the post took me back to the experience of listening to the Roja soundtrack for the first time. We had just bought a new Maruti 800 car and that was the first audio cassette we had bought to play in the sound system in it.God, the memories!
Also echo Madan Mohan’s comment about the change in his music. His latest albums haven’t hooked me in their entirety like they seemed to do in his earlier work. There are barely two songs in Tamasha that I listen to regularly or just one in Highway and so on, whereas it used to feel like a crime to pass on through any of the songs on a Rahman album.
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Madan
March 6, 2017
Windows 10/Google Chrome. Yesterday, I read it on a desktop. Now opened the link on a laptop, no problems.
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Aadhy
March 6, 2017
As someone who grew up in the 90s fanboying over him, I find this ‘90s Rahman’ thing to be a bit overblown. Much better than his current work? Maybe. His best work? I don’t think so. To me, he was still finding his sound in the 90s, speaking purely from a musicality perspective (without going into the mix and master quality of his songs). Maybe the sound was new for what the mainstream audience was exposed to back then. But a lot of this ‘new sound’ credit should go to someone like Keith Peters, whose sick basslines contributed immensely to that ‘sound’ of Rahman. I believe Rahman’s best work to be during 98-2004, when he did actually find his own sound. He was at his maddest best then, delving into a journey of exploration with innovative Indian melodies and original western arrangements, album after album. Not saying that his earlier songs didn’t have these qualities, but just that they sounded more like a Carnatic music & Classic Rock-loving youngster dabbling with fusion music by bringing in the best musicians of both the worlds together, than a singular individual sound.
And I don’t think the concept of ‘slow poison’ exists anymore. There is an album releasing every week and I don’t think anyone would have the patience to keep listening to the same song until it grows on him/her. Rahman knows this and is definitely trying to put more emphasis on the catchiness aspect of the song, without losing its originality, which is fine IMO. It does make the song short-lived which is fine, because there so many other brilliant musicians creating amazing stuff and they should be given a listen and celebrated as well.
P.S: When I say Carnatic and Classic Rock, I mean them as examples of totally different kinds of music and not to say he didn’t dabble with other genres.
P.P.S: I know this is all perceptive, but just wanted to put this out since the ‘90s Rahman is the best’ comment is something that I have been witnessing all over social media, whenever a new album of his releases.
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Madan
March 7, 2017
@ Aadhy: Fair points. I may not completely go along with you on the mid 90s v/s 98-04 thing, but I do see your point. It is like how Raja fans insist that early 80s is the best Raja even though many of his best soundtracks happened in the mid/late 80s (or even later). For a lot of people, the fact that the composer hasn’t yet completely found his style IS the attraction and when his style is settled, they lose interest. Of course, that is not the composer’s fault.
But I’d say Rahman’s signature melodic licks were established going back to Roja. Even coming to his more recent work, you can identify this signature on tracks like Pookale Sattru/Parandhu Sella Vaa/Innum Konjam Neram. So this is another reason why the work of guys who came later is not so memorable. They also don’t seem to have a distinct melodic stamp the way Rahman (just like his predecessors) did. I do like a lot of Amit Trivedi’s work but he changes colour like a chameleon, depending on the film’s requirements. Which is not a bad thing but it is very difficult to say listen to the first minute or so of his songs and snap your fingers and say, “Ok, that’s a Trivedi number.” So going beyond the pre-internet and post-internet scenario affecting the way we listen to our music, there’s also that Rahman is the last great composer to date in film music in the ‘traditional’ sense of the word.
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shaviswa
March 7, 2017
Indian Film Music (Tamil or Hindi or any other language) is DEAD.
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Aadhy
March 7, 2017
Madan: I agree on Rahman’s songs having a strong melodic base, which new composers are finding hard to match up to. But I disagree on Amit Trivedi not having a distinct sound. If there’s anyone who has maintained his sound right from his first movie, it’s him. From his initial albums like Aamir, Dev.D and Udaan until his recent Udta Punjab or the single with Selvaganesh for Dewarists, they’re all very, very Amit. The fact that he sings half his own compositions with that grungy voice adds to his sound. He’s one composer after Rahman who’s very unpredictable in his arrangements and melodic structure, which also adds to his distinctiveness. But what I miss in him is the slow metamorphosis of a Rahman, something that I mentioned in my previous comment. Rahman went from ‘Oh this is new and interesting’ mode to ‘Oh this is genius’ mode gradually, whereas Trivedi exploded on the scene with some whacked out first few albums on his entry. But once you are familiar with his tricks and craft, be it the usage of Gujrati folk, the sudden burst of rock in a slow song, or funky electro-synth etc., his music doesn’t surprise you the way it did initially.
A similar case in Tamil cine-music is Santhosh Narayanan. His jazzy scales, infused with a lot of funk and open-throated singing, stood out quite a bit from the rest of Tamil music in the beginning. But he seems to be trapped in that sound now. But I would never underestimate these two guys (Amit and Santhosh). You never really know what they would come up with, which is why I don’t rely on Rahman too much nowadays to give us good music. There’s also quite some exciting talent in here like Sean Roldan, Leon James, Gibran etc. who are very inventive independent musicians and have already been developing their own styles. In other words, the divide between independent music and mainstream film music has broken down considerably in Tamil. I don’t know if the same could be said about Bollywood, with their newly found obsession for remixes and hit singles.
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Rahul Tyagi
March 7, 2017
Haven’t been able to see any video in your recent posts Brangan. Any way for you to address this so that it works on most people’s browsers/devices?
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Madan
March 8, 2017
“But I disagree on Amit Trivedi not having a distinct sound.” – Just to be clear, I said distinct melodic signature, not sound. So in the case of Rahman even if the arrangements he uses in a song in the 2010s are very different from the early 90s, the melodic patterns bear his stamp. I haven’t as yet been to spot such a signature in the case of either Trivedi or Santosh Narayanan. There is a sort of break-out from the mid 2000s, so we are no longer able to evaluate film music by the old parameters. As I said in my first comment here, ambience and texture drive music today so it makes sense if today’s composers no longer have a melodic signature because it is not vitally important for them. Rahman, as some of those celebs mentioned in the livemint article, has sort of straddled the old and the new. Rather, he innovated the new into existence as far as Indian film music is concerned (the trends go back to Talk Talk in the late 80s) but is also considerably influenced by the old composers. Comparisons are often drawn between SN and Ilayaraja but I feel the similarity is again more textural. Somewhere along the line, Raja has become synonymous with orchestra/acoustic instruments and the fact that he has his own distinct melodic vocabulary is obscured because people are looking at all music from the prism of texture and slotting it accordingly.
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Phani
March 8, 2017
After Rahman, I like music of Shankar Ehsan Loy
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vijay
March 8, 2017
Sometimes it just seems the entire music scene everywhere has come a full circle and there ain’t going to be any new megatrends. anybody feel that way? About 7-8 yrs back I remember having written either here or elsewhere that ARR was the last big trend. (and also he would be hard-pressed to top his own delhi-6, which, I must admit is true, at least for me)
Playback singing also seems to be dying a slow death.
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praneshp
March 8, 2017
Thanks BR. The pictures on the blog are all good now.
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Ravi K
March 9, 2017
Vijay wrote: “Sometimes it just seems the entire music scene everywhere has come a full circle and there ain’t going to be any new megatrends. anybody feel that way? About 7-8 yrs back I remember having written either here or elsewhere that ARR was the last big trend.”
I wonder about this too. ARR ushered in a brand new sound to Indian film music, not just in the use of synths, but in the way he approached the sound of a song. The layering, the subtle sounds, instruments and sounds we hadn’t heard before. And he used electronic sounds and mixing in a way that nobody before him had. He gave us a shot of hipness that made everyone else sound stale, and it wasn’t until the 2000s that we saw others catching up.
ARR broke open the sound of Indian film music. Other good composers have arrived after ARR, and more will come, but how does one break everything open again? Santosh Narayanan does have a sound in certain albums that doesn’t sound like anything ARR has done. Same with Amit Trivedi. His work in Dev.D has some of the few rock-based tracks I like in Indian film music. Something that has even eluded ARR, IMO. But can we say they revolutionized Tamil or Hindi film music the way ARR did?
Maybe the era of one star composer dominating our collective ear is over. For the foreseeable future I think there will be a handful of composers who are producing good work, without any one of them trouncing the others.
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karrvakarela
March 9, 2017
I’m someone who doesn’t speak Tamil nor do I have any background in that culture. But I remember walking into a music store when I was young and hearing “Chinna Chinna Asai” and just being completely hooked. I’ve heard almost every ARR album since then and still look forward expectantly to every new release. I agree with you, Baradwaj, about him developing his signature sound in the pre-internet era where we listened to music in a very different way from now. Personally, I find his earlier work much more enjoyable than the more recent soundtracks. The “Thiruda Thiruda” album is a good example of that. Even now, after a remove of a couple of decades, I still enjoy listening to “Thee Thee”. Or “Poraale Ponnuthayi” from Karuthamma. Or “En Veetu Thotathil” from Gentleman. The “Swades” album you can listen to backwards and forwards and it still sounds good. I’m not sure I can say that about any of his more recent work.
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Vivek
March 9, 2017
Truer words were never spoken!
And so it has become that, in life, distraction is the new constant, and finding focus, in itself seems to have become a distraction!
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RAVINDRAN KALYANARAMAN
April 7, 2020
Hi sir, IAM RAVINDRAN from CHENNAI. Iam your greatest & craziest fans of your song ever since from ROJA. The songs you have composed are unbelievable & fantastic. I have been your great follower for almost 28 YEARS. But recently. your songs which has been composed by you in BIGIL is somewhat lagging in that veri than am song.Your CARNATIC TOUCH is missing recently & I request you as an ardent fan of you to give some melodies like ROJA,PUDIYA.MUGAM Film type of songs in the upcoming future projects.Moreover I kindly request you to create an awareness film regarding CORONA @present OUR INDIAN country is going through a difficult phase.
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