Balki's next project - Shamitabh

Claps Or Slaps:

We give Claps to Illaiyaraaja who has impressed us with his off beat music yet again in Shamitabh. And though the audience may not find the tracks engaging initially, once the film releases, they will surely be hooked on to it.

FINAL WORD

Ilaiyaraaja might be a legend on the final step of becoming the first music composer to have composed 1000 soundtracks but he sure does not impress much with the OST of ‘Shamitabh’. His work is clean but not awesome to stand the competition with the mainstream Bollywood composers. The music on all songs sound very flat with not much depth or real instrumentation. The casio keyboard sounding compositions are rather unattractive to listen to at times. Suraj Jagan is the vocal lead of the album although Big B steals the show with Piddly Si Baatein which is the best musical piece on the album. Stereophonics Sannata has good vocals by Shruti Haasan as well but like most other songs the lyrics fail them. A lot better was expected from Kirkire and Munir with their pens on the lyrics front as some of the songs are just plain bad work. But considering these two lyricists usually do a great job I guess the combination of R. Balki and Ilaiyaraaja working with them just doesn’t work. Overall the album lacks creativity and a good wholesome sound that will work in Bollywood as the musical standard has shot up too high for this soundtrack to make a mark.

BizAsia Showbiz Rating – 5/10

She has the throw and the range and the way she pronounces Sannata is fabulous. No other singer could have pulled off this song, Raja sir was categorical that this was the voice he wanted," he says. The recording was just half a day's work at Ilayaraja's sprawling studio in Chennai which has a series of booths but also a huge hall where you can record with a string quartet. "After recording in matchbox size cubicles, it was wonderful to go back to this old school studio in Chennai and record a song under the baton of my first composer," Shruti smiles. 

Swanand points out that you don't need singers and song writer when the hero is mute and his song is silence... Sannata. "It was great fun jamming with Balki and Raja sir who I have worked with earlier in Paa. He's an institution in himself who pays minute attention to words, nuances and tonality. I came up with Piddly because of him. I had started out with the word Alam Ara but he insisted he wanted something small and threw me some Tamil words, one of which was idli from which Piddly came about," informs Swanand. "Fortunatelym in this case we already had Sannata. The word has different connotations, from terror to danger, but in this case we've brought in an element of humour." 

Ilaiyaraja’s least interesting track also sounds more interesting than most of what our Bollywood composers usually offer. His magic lies in the curious yet brilliant juxtaposition of techno new-age beats with timeless compositions making Shamitabh an album you can listen to over and over again.

app_engine wrote: off-beat'AmAm

Claps Or Slaps:

We give Claps to Illaiyaraaja who has impressed us with his off beat music yet again in Shamitabh. And though the audience may not find the tracks engaging initially, once the film releases, they will surely be hooked on to it.

In their third collaboration together, R Balki and Ilaiyaraaja have worked on the music of Shamitabh. This is the 999th album of Ilaiyaraaja's career and it definitely has that distinct mark of the music maestro - subtle and inviting. 

Ilaiyaraaja doesn’t dole out Hindi songs very often but when he does, they are special.

Music
Illayaraja doesn't dole out songs for Bollywood films everyday but when he does, he makes sure that they cling onto the listeners. Be it the title track Sha sha sha mi mi or the quirky Ishq-e-Filum, the tunes do not easily get out of your mind. Even Amitabh Bachchan's Piddly Loo is quite catchy.

‘Shamitabh’ makes for an engaging one-time watch primarily due to the superlative performances from Bachchan and Dhanush

Stars: 3.5 out of 5

kamalaakarsh wrote:Reviews on twitter do not seem to be pleasing. This one for instance: http://www.huffingtonpost.in/suprateek-chatterjee/why-shamitabh-is-a-traves_b_6627312.html?utm_hp_ref=india

This --> "What is hard to imagine is that grown men and women with undeniable talent worked hard to make and promote a movie this infantile and badly-thought-through. That dichotomy sticks out even in the technical department. PC Sreeram's cinematography is horrendous (I lost count of the number of frames that featured out-of-focus objects blocking up to a third of the screen), while the great Illaiayraja's overly lush background score is manipulative and obtrusive, often drowning out dialogue to comical effect (much like enthusiastic acceptance speeches are cut off at awards ceremonies)."

Drunkenmunk wrote:Friend, reviewer for the New Indian Express, here: http://t.co/yUSQ1sQgl9

Mixed review for the film, as in Amitabh, Dhanush rock the floors, but inconsistent writing. But thumbs up to Raaja's music. This is a guy whose views I respect and trust. This is all I need to go confidently into the film.