Anything about IR found on the net - Vol 2

fring151 wrote:

crimson wrote:kingAlthough some HCIRFs might insist that that was the case even in the 90s, it was at least not so obvious at that time because every ARR film, seemingly, had something new to offer and was approached with a lot of excitement.

Between 93 and 2000, ARR was consistently averaging 3-4 great albums and 5-10 brilliant songs a year. From Kamalaakarsh's stats, it is clear that IR's strike rate was much lower even though he continued to deliver about the same or higher number of good songs every year, particularly in the mid 90s as is borne out by Raaga_Suresh's fantastic analysis in the other thread. So, yes, it is fair to say that the volume of output worked against him and led to songs like "Nilladha veNNila" being ignored. The unusually large number of monotonous songs in this period could be due to lack of inspiration, boredom or fatigue. I also remember reading an opinion by someone in the hub (was it Jaiganesh) that the symphony experience possibly took something out of him.

I am not really sure if I can say "strike rate" is lower. I have compiled my own "best of 92", "best of 93" etc kind of songs in separate folders and each year, there have been at least 15 songs. Now, 15 good songs in a year is actually very good. But the problem is, those 15 have been buried along with another 100 unimpressive (for me) songs. I think you have summed it up perfectly - that it was not lack of gems but the problem was separating gems from pebbles. I think that polarzied the perception about raaja's music, for general public. Added to that, issues such as choice of instruments, choice of singers, unusual synth (neither here not there kind of land),  recording quality problems (like a Kannada composer once lamented on Mayyam hub that even a non-qualified person such as Uttam Singh was doing sound engineering and that Raaja allowed it).. all collectively further added to the overall loss of glory. 

I know some ARR fans who connect so well with certain Raaja albums (Cheeni Kum, Kaalapani, NEPV etc.) and I can see why they cannot connect with a large part of his 90s output.

kamal .. you may be right.. but maybe IR has to do 100 songs to get 15 hits ..have you compared the success rate in late 70s, 80s .. ?
I dont think IR can demand bigger fees and guarantee hits, even though he has done well in big productions ..
All he knows is , if you have a big budget .. he will use a big orchestra ..will it be a hit ? He does not know..
So he does what ever he feels like .. with whatever budget .. just keeps the creative juices flowing..
There is no magic or sure fire formula for success. he just tries to create something that is all.
But why did we get started on this ? Rahman is also from our land .. we should be proud of his Oscar etc ..

as 90s Raaja acolyte I take great offence to assertion that his music waned any which way in that period/was sounding monotonous.

Despite giving some extraordinary gems in 92-93-94-95-96 period, I feel that there was a lot of monotony in Raaja's music in those years (there was some amount of variety as well and some phenomenal songs came, which I rate among his best... but still, the proportion was largely lopsided)

totally at dark here, could you list out albums which you found 'monotonous'. if anything wrt tfm all the top actors
had their best album with Raaja viz-a-viz other MDs like AR/Deva and include his works in Telugu/Malayalam/Kannada it comfortably dwarfs any other MDs work during that period.

So i really feel that it was time someone came and challenged with some new order. Now when I look back, i feel ARR came at the right time..

don't think he was ever 'challenged' if AR and his new sound didn't break-in he would have probably
done more movies. AR or otherwise Aruna Girana/Asalem Gurthukuradhu/Maharajanodu/Sihi gaali would have still happened.
remember he never believed in 'hit combos' with banners/directors/actors that he had managed to stay relevant in the industry for
this long even after antagonizing so many of them just shows he is/was least bit 'monotonous' say if the tables were
turned AR had to forgo of all his hit combos and made to work with bunch of newbie directors/actors for an year,
will he survive? I doubt he would.

But from a listener's point of view, all it may take is one or two disappointing soundtracks in quick succession to create the impression that the artist is off his peak (which is what happened on a much larger scale in the 90s)

.

don't think listeners had the option of giving it a good listen before they could assert their 'disappointment', imagine
being constantly bombarded with 'Lucky Lucky' from Ratchagan whilst 'Muthamizhe' from Raman Abdullah slipped through the cracks.

Although some HCIRFs might insist that that was the case even in the 90s, it was at least not so obvious at that time because every ARR film, seemingly, had something new to offer and was approached with a lot of excitement. It was a journey of discovery whereas now it is more of consumption of something that the audience is already comfortable with.

just like how Apple sell their various iterations of Iphones   

Between 93 and 2000, ARR was consistently averaging 3-4 great albums and 5-10 brilliant songs a year.

AR probably did as many movies per year, appo  ellame great albums'a, hyperbole much?

I can totally relate to why ARR insists that only the best music ought to leave the studio because he is very anxious about the perception of his music among the audience.  But I just don't think it is a very honest approach to ART.  The artist should just put it out there and see what happens, hope for a favourable response but not try to somehow ensure it.

imo it shows his insecurity, this laborious approach to music shoos away many small time directors/producers. imagine each song being put on ventilator for 2 months and been constantly tinkered with. Art enna white box testing'a??

He will look straight at you and say it - adhil irukkum ovvoru nOtum ennodhathu !!!
To hell with team work .. this is the beauty from inside a single human brain ..

bingo, Gibran has started this new trend of 'crediting' the loop bank he had used for a particular track,
shouldn't other MDs who rely on them as much start doing the same   

wizzy wrote:

Between 93 and 2000, ARR was consistently averaging 3-4 great albums and 5-10 brilliant songs a year.

AR probably did as many movies per year, appo  ellame great albums'a, hyperbole much?

Saar, as someone who insists on rigour and accuracy in formulating arguments and generally cautious about throwing around numbers, I take offense to that.

Let's agree "consistently between 93 and 2000" = at least in 5 of those 8 years. Here goes:

93 - Gentleman, Thiruda thiruda, Pudhiya mugam
94 - Kaadhalan, May Madham, Duet .(Could also include Karuthamma, but I have already attained my targeted lower limit of 3 and will let it pass)
95- Bombay, Rangeela, Muthu, Indira
96 - Kadhal desam, Minsara kanavu, Indian, Love birds
2000 - Kandukondein, Alaipayuthey, Rhythm

There! Desired number reached. Now personal opinions may differ on whether these albums can be called "Great", but they are all generally agreed upon as very very good soundtracks by most music lovers.

fring151 wrote:

wizzy wrote:

Between 93 and 2000, ARR was consistently averaging 3-4 great albums and 5-10 brilliant songs a year.

AR probably did as many movies per year, appo  ellame great albums'a, hyperbole much?

Saar, as someone who insists on rigour and accuracy in formulating arguments and generally cautious about throwing around numbers, I take offense to that.

Let's agree "consistently between 93 and 2000" = at least in 5 of those 8 years. Here goes:

93 - Gentleman, Thiruda thiruda, Pudhiya mugam
94 - Kaadhalan, May Madham, Duet .(Could also include Karuthamma, but I have already attained my targeted lower limit of 3 and will let it pass)
95- Bombay, Rangeela, Muthu, Indira
96 - Kadhal desam, Minsara kanavu, Indian, Love birds
2000 - Kandukondein, Alaipayuthey, Rhythm

There! Desired number reached. Now personal opinions may differ on whether these albums can be called "Great", but they are all generally agreed upon as very very good soundtracks by most music lovers.

very very good != great

clearly we have different definition on what constitutes a great album. If this is the benchmark for an great album it's safe to conclude Raaja's supposedly lower strike rate was still better than his challenger's career best 

adhAnE - I rather imagine Aakarhs's worshtu list will contain Naattupura pAttu, Poomani etc. But I'd rather say that's probably not fair. It is not perhaps a genre that Kamalaakarsh "gets".

Further discussion is possible only when Aakarsh lists the albums he considers as low quality from IR in the 90s. otherwise, we will be boxing in the dark.

Secondly, even in 80s if I list all 52 movies of 1984 for instance, I dont imagine Aakarsh/Fring would classify more than 15 as absolute greats. That is not a great strike rate, either.

That's the way IR is. Spontaneity. And he tries many things, and it all comes together gloriously in one mass-pleasing album which is also path breaking, kamalaakarsh-pleasing :0

Drunkenmunk wrote:

kamalaakarsh wrote:

What is this about? I never heard about this.

Also, when Raaja was given National Award for best background score for Pazhassi Raja, Sippy was the head of the Jury (i think).

No idea. Hearsay hence not sure as I've mentioned there. Maybe people who followed the scene closely in the 80s can shed light if there really was a fight or if Hindi just didn't look to Raaja.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/57th_National_Film_Awards

Sippy was the chairperson of the jury, in deed.

Twisttu is that MS Sathyu, Nagabharana et al were jury members. I'd assume they prevailed especially with Lenin, Maithili Rao, Hari kumar all in the jury. A jury votes for the award, and I can see how IR would have got a majority in that committee, even if chairman Sippy didnt vote for him. I would assume it didnt come to a tie and dependence on Sippy's casting vote.

I am being simplistic there but that's the point - a jury discusses, debates, argues, votes for and decides on an award collectively. And they do this for about 60-70 awards for the year in various categories. There is only so much energy Sippy can spend on ensuring that a perosn he doesnt like doesnt get the award in an obscure category, especially since Amit T had already been decided for the main music category award.

Or, Sippy might have forgotten the past fracas. Anything i spossible

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/40th_National_Film_Awards

This, on the other hand....Mr Balu Mahendra will never be forgiven for failing to go by merit, and instead going by "encourage the youngster" sentiments.
When as chairman and from the region of the movie in question, he favours Roja, why would others question?

Roja might be ground breaking etc but IMO, Thevar Magan deserved the award that year. 

Would Bharatbala as chairman of committee selected IR ahead of his friend, even if he felt in his heart that IR's movie deserved it more?
Yet, our Balu Mahendra did. And that too, when he felt that "while thevar magan deserved it, I wanted to encourage the youngster"

On such vagaries are awards decided and that is why when someone claims eminence based on the awards he has received, it is laughable.

Awards don't mean much.

BTW - GV, Subbiramhy Reddy in the committee that awarded Minsara Kanavu the best music award. One of them a wheeler dealer who promoted ARR in the first place to displace IR, and another a general wheeler dealer who tries to hog limelight by being with celebrities. It is not hard to fathom that GV could easily have influenced Subbi to support his protege, association with whom subbi would be glad to have.

Add D Rama Naidu, who though a maverick and his own man and unlike Subbi not prone to be influenced by GVs of the world, could easily be swayed by the "dakshin bharat ka pride Raghuman"
Now, there is  a case where a jury member clearly had a stake in promoting an award for AR Rahman (as one of his biggest promoters), and had the power and influence to do it

^Charu Hassan was in the jury too, so much love for Minsara Kanavu   what a farce it turned out to be if you consider SPB couldn't get an award for his marathon singing in 'Annamayya' whilst he got one for 'Minsara Kanavu'.

Annamayya was in the following year, Wiz. And it won against..."GURU"!!!!

MM Keeravani, to his credit, openly stated that he won that award through lobbying by producer

plumadhAnE - I rather imagine Aakarhs's worshtu list will contain Naattupura pAttu, Poomani etc. But I'd rather say that's probably not fair. It is not perhaps a genre that Kamalaakarsh "gets".

Further discussion is possible only when Aakarsh lists the albums he considers as low quality from IR in the 90s. otherwise, we will be boxing in the dark.

Secondly, even in 80s if I list all 52 movies of 1984 for instance, I dont imagine Aakarsh/Fring would classify more than 15 as absolute greats. That is not a great strike rate, either.

That's the way IR is. Spontaneity. And he tries many things, and it all comes together gloriously in one mass-pleasing album which is also path breaking, kamalaakarsh-pleasing :0

Quite possible that it is a genre that I dont "get". Thats why I wrote that this opinion is purely about what all 'I" liked/felt. And this is why i can never quantify "strike rate". Now I have to go about listing out those 40 odd films? Will do it someday when I have lot of time. But i wrote about the way I went about filtering. Go to rakkamma.com. Select 1 year, for example 1994. Get the list of films. Then listen to all the songs in each film. Pick the ones I like and put them in separate folder (so that I can create my own 'best of 94' playlist). This  exercise takes a whole day or more, like 2 days. And finally, I end up with about 20 (for example) songs. 

I guess it sounds generic when I say "monotonity". I am not trying to prove here that ARR;s 90s output is better than Raaja's 90s output. Heck, I have been listening to Raaja 90s more than ARR 90s. I am only trying to give my guess (or my version of analysis) that many good songs of IR were probably buried behind the not so impressive ones. Like it happened to me. As simple as that. I discovered Kolangal in 2013, can you beat that!!! I discovered "poonkaatrile" song (from paatu padava? which film?) in 2013. And this despite me being following his work. Agreed that internet/mp3 culture was absent. But thats an easy cover that I dont want to take. Even after mp3 boom, it took so many years for me to discover some gems. 

As for picking only 15 among 80s as absolute greats - it is quite possible. I might. But then, I discovered 80s Raaja (tamil) as well as 90s Raaja at the same time. And in general, out of experience (now plz dont ask me to list out stats.. will have to spend months) - the probability of chancing upon fantastic songs in 80s was a notch higher than the probability in 90s. But then 90s too had some superb compositions. 

And as for challenge. I can never establish that Raaja's innovative songs in 90s were a direct response to new challenges. it is just my guess. even if ARR was not there, he might have given Anthapuram? may be. May be not. we never know. I am inclined to guess that Raaja changed gears as response because i(and everyone) saw shifts in the elements of his songs and raaja too often talked about doing something different, something fresh etc. whether those shifts are out of his natural choice? or as a response to commercial forces? - thats for him to tell. In any way, i believe that every composer has to embrace change. And Raaja did it, somewhere in mid-90s. And I am glad he did it. Today, as a fan, I might be even disappointed with some of his mid-90s songs that went overboard with synth and all. But from another perspective, I give it to him that he tried many things. that he was willing to adapt. And mind you, he is still doing that today. 

Disclaimer: I thought his 90s output was far more weaker, but in the last 2 years, i changed my opinion to "good enough". And that is because of those 15-25 odd songs scattered across 45 films each year, which I listened/discovered. Perhaps there is more to discover. But what I am saying here is a function of what I have discovered/understood/liked and also my own musical preferences within Raaja mould.

plum wrote:Annamayya was in the following year, Wiz. And it won against..."GURU"!!!!

MM Keeravani, to his credit, openly stated that he won that award through lobbying by producer

Chairman of jury Saroja Devi gaaru   avanga rasanai and telends well documented. But it is certainly about the whole jury and when the rest can be influenced, like MMK himself agrees on the lobbying, the Chairman is more of a rubber stamp like our President. Anyway, stopped bothering about awards from my end. But from your comments, I gather then that it is true there was bitterness between IR and Ramesh Sippy.

Drunkenmunk

plum wrote:Annamayya

was in the following year, Wiz. And it won against..."GURU"!!!!

MM Keeravani, to his credit, openly stated that he won that award through lobbying by producer

Chairman of jury Saroja Devi gaaru   avanga rasanai and telends well documented. But it is certainly about the whole jury and when the rest can be influenced, like MMK himself agrees on the lobbying, the Chairman is more of a rubber stamp like our President. Anyway, stopped bothering about awards from my end. But from your comments, I gather then that it is true there was bitterness between IR and Ramesh Sippy.

But interesting twist is that Kamal Haasan regards Ramesh Sippy as one of his close 'bollywood' friends :-). Ramesh Sippy was even present in Hey Ram audio release (if i remember it right), where KH was heaping praise on Raaja.

Reg. rAsA "changing" thanks to "challenge", I want people to compare his drastic shift in 1980 from the 70's output - when there was hardly anybody to really give a fight to him.

Listen to the "MSV-like" songs that rAsA did in 70's (en kalyANa vaibOgam unnOdu dhAN, chellappiLLai saravaNan etc) and compare that to his own unique brand of songs like 'paruvamE pudhiya pAdal pAdu', 'en iniya pon nilAvE', 'idhu oru ponmAlaippozhudhu', 'idhu oru nilAkkAlam' or 'pani vizhum malarvanam'.

All of a sudden from 1980!

Why did he "change"?  Who challenged him to change?

I agree some external influence (director encouraging, producer willing to provide better budget etc) but it was more of "SELF-MOTIVATION" from rAsA that was behind his drastic change strategy!
(In this respect, IR's hand-written letter to Usha chEchi's brother CSR, that got published in his blog sometime back, is a very strong proof! There IR clearly stated that he wanted to keep doing something new / novel all the time - i.e. regardless of any competition / challenge).

Not just that - I think in NEPV launch or another public appearance, rAsA strongly proclaimed his composing strategy - that he doesn't like to do "another-song-LIKE-THAT-ONE-which-was-great-and-hit"

'onnu mAthiri innonnu irukkak koodAdhu' seems to be his motto, in music composing. There may not be drastic variation from each film / album to another but there are definite progressive changes from his PoV.

Ordinary folks like me may discern the change only when there's a major trend-setting album (like agni natchathiram or kAlApAni) but in IR's own world, such changes keep happening every day...

Aakarsh - I don't want to give you an impression that I am questioning your taste. Far from it. For someone of your background, to be even interested in Raja's 80s and 90s output in TAMIL, is unusual.

I know I make a big deal of the respect telugu folks give to Raja even today but honestly, that is purely based on his output in Telugu. The HCIRF who straddle languages and follow Raja is not huge. 
In that sense, I am thankful that fans like you exist in telugudesam.

Disclaimer out, let's proceed to explain my stance.

I still maintain that if you really listed out the 80s output, the proportion of Raja songs you like may not be that different.
I'd explain this further:
1. You like 15/100 songs in 90s, very likely you'll classify only 15-20/100 as great even in the 80s
2. I probably like a bigger proportion in 90s, but I just think that my likes of 80s output would be of similar proportion
3. Raaga_Suresh likes 100% of Raja's output in 90s. He, I surmise, likes 100% of 80s raja output  (as Dagalti famously dubbed him, "avaru oodhavE vENAm")

That is, IR is IR, He is the same. Our prism of seeing him seems to be varying (in your case), a bit from 30000ft level (in my case)
(In other words, he continues to follow the same process as he ever did. My reckoning is mathematically, a person reacting to his 90s output in a certain manner, will have a similar reaction to th e80s output in same proportion. Now, I am talking of serious listeners like Aakarsh, not the average jothilingam)
I wonder how much you like the "ponna pOla AthA enna pethu pOttA" "jingidi jingidi onakku" type songs from 80s. The answer to that might help me further in my theorizing.


The thing with IR is, he doesn't curate, compile or pickle it and release it after 6 months like ARR does, That is, there is no Quality Assurance, or Quality Control process. (this being my line of job now, I would be out of job with IR like programmers in IT. Thankfully, I reckon nobody like IR exists in IT). It's like, the client gives the requirement, IR writes the code then and there, and the recording process is just compiling and executing. 

While I - and Suresh - would like to claim that in each of his 950 movies, the output was *exactly* as the client needed it, that may, of course, be exaggeration. There are masala movies where the director has no idea, the script has no particular emotion to express, and in those songs, yes, there is no way we can claim the script deserved exactly that song. But, to a large extent, if the script and/or the director needed a specific emotion and viewpoint, I rather believe IR expressed it *perfectly* 100% of the time such a requirement was there.

At the same time, in those other situations and movies where there was no need to stick to a script/emotion, I think IR did his experimentation, and not all of these may be perfect. Unfortunately, my tiny brain can't think of an example of an idea being experimented in FlopSong A, and then developed and perfected in SuperHit Song B later. I reckon Suresh can give that example. Or, I could take a shortcut and point to NEPV as the culmination of IR's ideas and experimentation in the recent times.(a few flop songs for previous few years - that maybe suresh and I liked but didnt stand out like NEPV like a force of nature, and those ideas culminating in the tour de force that was NEPV)

That is why, I say, if you dig deep into 80s, you'll hear all those pre-perfect ideas of songs, which I am predicting that will lead to a same proportion of likes/dislikes as you have for IR's output in 90s.

Drunkenmunk wrote:

plum wrote:Annamayya was in the following year, Wiz. And it won against..."GURU"!!!!

MM Keeravani, to his credit, openly stated that he won that award through lobbying by producer

Chairman of jury Saroja Devi gaaru   avanga rasanai and telends well documented. But it is certainly about the whole jury and when the rest can be influenced, like MMK himself agrees on the lobbying, the Chairman is more of a rubber stamp like our President. Anyway, stopped bothering about awards from my end. But from your comments, I gather then that it is true there was bitterness between IR and Ramesh Sippy.

Honestly, I don't know much about Sippy's feud with IR. I am just going by what Aakarsh has mentioned. I was just pointing to the fact that Award committees work in myriad ways with several different directions of push and pull, and people compromising with each other finally. For instance, if Prakash Jha's primary motive was to push Saif Ali Khan for best actor bsaed on his motives to impress Sharmila Tagore, he might push that case hard, offer to support some other jury member from Karnataka, say, for supporting Tara as best actress, and thus emerge the final winners. It is hard to conclude that Sippy is in committee means IR cant win an award.

My other surmise on GV and co is based on their character and behaviour as illustrated through out the 90s - they were actively pushing 
'ragumAna pArthA thillana moganambal sivaji padmini mAdhiriyE irukku' at all available opportunities.

plum wrote:

Drunkenmunk wrote:

plum wrote:Annamayya was in the following year, Wiz. And it won against..."GURU"!!!!

MM Keeravani, to his credit, openly stated that he won that award through lobbying by producer

Chairman of jury Saroja Devi gaaru   avanga rasanai and telends well documented. But it is certainly about the whole jury and when the rest can be influenced, like MMK himself agrees on the lobbying, the Chairman is more of a rubber stamp like our President. Anyway, stopped bothering about awards from my end. But from your comments, I gather then that it is true there was bitterness between IR and Ramesh Sippy.

Honestly, I don't know much about Sippy's feud with IR. I am just going by what Aakarsh has mentioned. I was just pointing to the fact that Award committees work in myriad ways with several different directions of push and pull, and people compromising with each other finally. For instance, if Prakash Jha's primary motive was to push Saif Ali Khan for best actor bsaed on his motives to impress Sharmila Tagore, he might push that case hard, offer to support some other jury member from Karnataka, say, for supporting Tara as best actress, and thus emerge the final winners. It is hard to conclude that Sippy is in committee means IR cant win an award.

My other surmise on GV and co is based on their character and behaviour as illustrated through out the 90s - they were actively pushing 
'ragumAna pArthA thillana moganambal sivaji padmini mAdhiriyE irukku' at all available opportunities.

(i.e.) You may argue that "GV in committee" doesn't logically necessarily implies "Rahman will get award". And you'd be right, going by Mathetmatical logic alone. I just surmised it based on GV's character.

kamalaakarsh wrote:

Drunkenmunk

plum wrote:Annamayya

was in the following year, Wiz. And it won against..."GURU"!!!!

MM Keeravani, to his credit, openly stated that he won that award through lobbying by producer

Chairman of jury Saroja Devi gaaru   avanga rasanai and telends well documented. But it is certainly about the whole jury and when the rest can be influenced, like MMK himself agrees on the lobbying, the Chairman is more of a rubber stamp like our President. Anyway, stopped bothering about awards from my end. But from your comments, I gather then that it is true there was bitterness between IR and Ramesh Sippy.

But interesting twist is that Kamal Haasan regards Ramesh Sippy as one of his close 'bollywood' friends :-). Ramesh Sippy was even present in Hey Ram audio release (if i remember it right), where KH was heaping praise on Raaja.

Well, that's an occupational hazard. Even the arrogant, say-it-as-I-see-it, caustic IR grinned and bore with Bharathiraja making that "IR is incomplete iwthout VM with him now" comment in the Annakodi function.

If a nasty person like IR could grin and bear it, I guess a businessman who knows which side of his bread is buttered like Ramesh Sippy, would have had no qualms in sitting through the Hey Ram function listening to Kamal praising IR

I'd go with Suresh, Munk and App on the 90s response of Raja to ARR thingy.
I think he was forced, not necessarily by the advent of ARR, but the new reality of times that synth had to be done. (i.e.) Synth as the soRu instead of being appaLam oorugai.

If not ARR, someone else would have brought Synth and Electronic sounds as a new paradigm.

It is instructive to see how IR reacted to this - and I think in a forum that has Suresh as a member, I will refrain from talking like a "paruppu" on this aspect. I think he has already written enough about this to establish that IR's approach was not really driven by Rahman's paradigms, and that his approach remained the same. Raaga_suresh - engirundhAlum mEdaikku varavum

"don't think listeners had the option of giving it a good listen before they could assert their 'disappointment', imagine 
being constantly bombarded with 'Lucky Lucky' from Ratchagan whilst 'Muthamizhe' from Raman Abdullah slipped through the cracks."

You are quoting me out of context here.  I said that about part about one or two disappointing soundtracks as a possible explanation of why someone would claim that IR was finished after 1985 (which somebody did in a comment on ravi sir's blog), an opinion that I otherwise find totally inexplicable.  I said one or two bad soundtracks could trigger a reaction from the audience so it is not necessary that such opinions are based on any logic.  And that is fine as long as people don't purport to present the truth when they say such things.  

"imo it shows his insecurity, this laborious approach to music shoos away many small time directors/producers. imagine each song being put on ventilator for 2 months and been constantly tinkered with. Art enna white box testing'a??"


Partly agree and partly disagree with this.  Everybody has their own working methods. If A R Rahman cannot work like Ilayaraja, there is no point in pretending to.  When I think of IR, I am reminded of Hitchcock.  The reason I say that is Hitchcock said he never actually looked into the camera while shooting the scenes because he had it all worked out already in his head.  Which is just the way IR writes music.  Not everybody can do that.  One of my good friends is a musician based out of Bangalore and a huge IR fan and he frets over his songs (he has his own band) for months before he finally puts a fullstop, even sending the raw demo one or two times to time for feedback.  Everybody cannot execute what they have in their head in one go.  If IR does that, it's simply because he is a genius.  If Rahman is more comfortable letting songs incubate for months, so be it.  He does run the risk of losing impatient producers to other MDs in the process so fair game. 

If the IR of Konji Konji was indeed the same IR of the 80s and 70s, I might have found it much more difficult to get into his music.  There is something striking about that intrusive, banal beat.  Even contextualising it as a rough approximation of a club class band doesn't work for me.  What I am talking about has nothing to do with recording or budget, it is just how the beat has been programmed. I find the Konji Konji beat very uncharacteristic of IR.  It may have been an 'experiment' gone wrong or it may have simply been fatigue. And I don't necessarily find the idea of suggesting the latter heresy.  He is human, it could well have happened, especially given the volume of work he was taking on up to that point.  If I don't have evidence that it did happen, where's the evidence that it didn't, by the same token.

totally at dark here, could you list out albums which you found 'monotonous'. if anything wrt tfm all the top actors
had their best album with Raaja viz-a-viz other MDs like AR/Deva and include his works in Telugu/Malayalam/Kannada it comfortably dwarfs any other MDs work during that period.

Not just Tamil

Chiranjeevi: RudraVeena, Abhilasha, Kondaveeti Donga, Challenge, Kirathakudu, Rakshasudu - take your pick. Kirathakudu - even I discovered it only recently.
"nann(u) I lOkam rammanalEdhu
sardhAga nEnochEsA
"
might not just be the statement of intent from the kirathakudu of a character that is the hero of that movie, but also a statement from IR himself.

Nagarjuna: Geethanjali, Shiva. Is there anything else at all that can compete?

Balakrishna: Maybe, there are other superhits for Bala than with IR, for Balakrishna than any other telugu hero of that time. But even he was given the absolutely gorgeous Aditya 369, Aswamedham and Dharmakshetram. And if you question that, I have a brahmastra. Sri Rama Rajyam

Venkatesh: Prema. Period. If not Coolie #1

Rajendra Prasad: Chettukinda Pleader, April 1 Vidudala. (the only hero apart from the big 4 who had a market until early 2000s, and was even more of a  box office guarantee than the big 4 during early 90s)

You have to get down to the next level like Naresh, Dr Rajasekar etc to find a top telugu hero whose best in career in terms of music is not an IR album

crimson king wrote:If the IR of Konji Konji was indeed the same IR of the 80s and 70s, I might have found it much more difficult to get into his music.  There is something striking about that intrusive, banal beat.  Even contextualising it as a rough approximation of a club class band doesn't work for me.  What I am talking about has nothing to do with recording or budget, it is just how the beat has been programmed. I find the Konji Konji beat very uncharacteristic of IR.  It may have been an 'experiment' gone wrong or it may have simply been fatigue. And I don't necessarily find the idea of suggesting the latter heresy.  He is human, it could well have happened, especially given the volume of work he was taking on up to that point.  If I don't have evidence that it did happen, where's the evidence that it didn't, by the same token.

The point is not that the IR of 90s is the same as the IR of 80s, if that is what you area refuting. If.
The point is his process was always the same, and irrespective of whether Thomas, Damodar or Rahman arrived in TFM or not, he would have gone through his own cycle of trial, experimentation, innovation and the whole cycle