Anything about IR found on the net - Vol 4

^^^  

While I agree that he has been toying with new concepts from the beginning, I'd differentiate, say tekvijay's example of En Iniya Pon Nilave, from something like Kadhal Meethu Oru.  The former is different within the vintage IR framework.  Within a few moments of the song playing, it's clear that idhu Raja kaiya vacha paatu.  Whereas, exactly what part of Kadhal Meedhu Oru screams vintage IR (I'd say ANY IR, but don't want to be too harsh)?  The difference between the 80s experimentation and the late 90s onwards attempts is the hint of tentativeness/lack of confidence in some of the latter, as if he's searching or exploring.  Not all, a song like Appidi Parkirathellam is very confident.  Which isn't surprising because for IR, composing a fusion workout is probably easier than trying to understand what this youthu factor crowd really wants.  

Let me put it this way then.  You or other hardcore IR fans get agitated because you see any suggestion that competition influenced him, even inadvertently by simply freeing up time for him to experiment, as an insult on his genius.  I on the other hand simply see it as recognising that he is also human. For some time, post ARR, he tried to give directors what they wanted and what they wanted was probably NOT vintage IR.  He eventually began to choose films which gave him better scope to express himself and by working with directors who were STILL prepared to work with IR because they loved his music.  Maybe it was a natural process, that after the middling Manasellam/Oru Naal Oru Kanavu, those films just stopped coming anyway.  However it be, the projects of the last few years are 'grown up' enough that he can experiment meaningfully.

I'm not totally agitated   Even in my post I mentioned that IR gets stimulated by competition as well, though not as a major input. 

Well, my opinion and that of other HCIRFs count nothing as IR HIMSELF had admitted to this  

Didn't he say in the ARR-Oscar-felicitation speech that he had been "communicating" with ARR musically, by way of his songs  (IIRC, he was referring to a couple of HFM composers who weren't talking to each other but only thru their music, indicating that he had been doing the same with his peers). That way, he "musically reacts" to competition is a fact and need not be an opinion.

So, that's not a big deal for me. The question is only the degree and to what extent.

That is, making that factor as a key contributor in his overall musical evolution - is troublesome for me. That will take a lot away from his career - especially if we label someone as ARR to be a big thing in that angle.

Plus, crediting ARR's rise to pushing IR to "accommodate others" is also not that much backed up well by facts. OTOH, it looks like he has hardened and refused movies only in the later decades (unlike in 80's when he hardly said NO to anyone). He had even been alleged of saying no to MR post-rOjA (which may or may not be true).

I take his warming up to Gautam not as a reaction to "ARR-effect" but as a genuine appreciation for the person. (IR did a rare gesture of doing a TV interview with Gautam in recent times too, even after Gautam went back to HJ-ARR). IR is actually "notorious" of such unusual attachment to specific people for no apparent reason (some deserving and others not much so, like that Agi guy).

Media monkeying around with KJY (IR-SPB-issue question)

KJY had good reason to get agitated and not answer

Part 3 of the patrikai.com thodar "இளையராஜாவை ஏன் கொண்டாட வேண்டும்":
https://www.patrikai.com/why-should-celebrate-ilayaraja-series-3-magic-conviction-ilayaraja-written-by-niyohi/

Talks about his dedication / appreciation by BMK-TVG...

 வேலையற்றவனின் டைரி

Feels good to read

app_engine wrote:
That is, making that factor as a key contributor in his overall musical evolution - is troublesome for me. That will take a lot away from his career - especially if we label someone as ARR to be a big thing in that angle.

My question is where do you get that from the article at all?  What indeed have I written?  

"If in 2012, Ilayaraja could come up with a Sayndhu Sayndhu, it is at least partly because Rahman’s success liberated him to search afresh for new ways to express  It is fully to his credit that he succeeded where many yesteryear composers failed in coming up with a new idiom of expression that still accommodated enough Ilayaraja tricks for us to recognise his voice. Like Paul McCartney singing Wings songs instead of Beatles.  Still McCartney but very different."


Please note the transfer in emphasis from partly to fully in the next sentence.  Sorry, but upon re-reading it, it still seems to be a balanced piece of writing to me and nothing that would steal credit away from IR and appropriate the same to ARR.  I get the point that the gumbal may attempt to misinterpret it to suit their ends but I can't be thinking about them or indeed any other interest group, so to speak, when I write the article, no?


Re accommodating directors, I am not talking about the accepting or rejecting of films per se but serving the director's needs.  IR has always said he wants to satisfy the director first and foremost.  In the late 90s, he was in a peculiar position where he was no longer dictating the sound of TFM and directors may have asked for something trendy as appropriate for the films (say Kadhalukku Mariyadhai, Kannukul Nilavu, Friends).  To my mind, this may have been the first instance where IR found that satisfying the director conflicted with his own satisfaction (which he has mentioned in the GVM interview, that he also needs to satisfy himself).  And then, going forward, may have started refusing more projects.


Lastly, no, I did not and do not suggest that ARR's success had anything to do with IR collaborating with GVM.  I used Sayndhu Sayndhu more as a culmination.  The journey of tracing a new path that began somewhere in the mid/late 90s culminated in the grand NEPV soundtrack.  And it is not imo a journey that could have been undertaken as long as the vintage IR sound was in vogue.  It was undertaken initially out of necessity but along the way IR put his own well genius or whatever you call it on it and transformed it into an all new genre.  That is all the contribution of ARR that I recognise - the only music director in the 90s capable of producing a sound that could commercially displace IR's.  That's it.  And that I think is simply giving credit where it's due.  He may not be as gifted a composer as IR but he was gifted enough to produce a new sound and combine it with great sound engineering to take the audience's breath away.  And with that, IR had to respond in some way because simply sticking to his guns wouldn't work and would have been how to put it a somewhat wimpy choice for a composer as talented as him.  So he responded, eventually, in his own way and in an unexpected direction.   I repeat, I am not assigning weights to this or that composer's contribution in the article and when I used words like feedback, it was metaphorical.  You have grasped the essence too when you say that IR himself says he has musical conversations with ARR.

IR told BR's age to Rajini it seems

IR appreciating another child prodigy

“பிரமாதமா வாசிக்கிற!” - இளையராஜா பாராட்டிய 12 வயது இசைப்புயல்!

crimson king wrote:
My question is where do you get that from the article at all?  

More than reading deep into the article, two things push one to think in that direction

1. The setting (BRangan blog, by now automatically recognized as the MR-ARR "almost" official propaganda place and also "uLkuththu" place for IR / IRFs)

2. The title of the article "how Rahman gave Ilayaraja feedback " (which makes any nunippul mEyum reader, majority who visit there - some didn't even recognize it wasn't by BRangan -an idea that "ARR fed IR" )

Once someone starts reading the post with that mindset, small things appear big and "partly" gets replaced by "most part" in the back of the mind

Of course, not your problem - it's the reader's fault but most visitors to that blog come with such baggage (as indicated by the comments there)

Now our vijayr is harping on pallavi-saraNam-pallavi as a big problem there in one of the comments. (Didn't read the whole comment as I got impatient).

One has to only look at two biggest hit albums of 1991 (i.e. the year prior to the "feedbacker" arrival late 1992 )

thaLabathy & gunA.

Do I have to list the songs and their varied structures?

However, this is not something suddenly happening in 1991. Look at another fantastic year, 1985 and the two famed albums mudhal mariyAdhai and sindhu bhairavi.

People should not simply pick on IR for trivial things such as traditional Indian film song structure as if it were imposed on people by IR.

Whenever the film / mileau gave scope for variations, he was not only happy to shower his blessings but did that with his stamp of style!

If we start listing his "non-standard-structure-song-list", that will be another thread that can run into many pages!

சும்மா வாய்க்கு வந்ததெல்லாம் பேசி ராசாவைக்குத்துவதற்கு ஒரு இடம் உண்டாக்கிக் கொடுப்பதை ரங்கன் வழக்கமாக்கி வருகிறார்.

நாம் எச்சரிக்கையுடன் அதைத்தவிர்ப்பது உடல்நலத்துக்கு நல்லது!

app_engine wrote:

crimson king wrote:
My question is where do you get that from the article at all?  

More than reading deep into the article, two things push one to think in that direction

1. The setting (BRangan blog, by now automatically recognized as the MR-ARR "almost" official propaganda place and also "uLkuththu" place for IR / IRFs)

2. The title of the article "how Rahman gave Ilayaraja feedback " (which makes any nunippul mEyum reader, majority who visit there - some didn't even recognize it wasn't by BRangan -an idea that "ARR fed IR" )

Once someone starts reading the post with that mindset, small things appear big and "partly" gets replaced by "most part" in the back of the mind

Of course, not your problem - it's the reader's fault but most visitors to that blog come with such baggage (as indicated by the comments there)

Thank you.  I really do appreciate your honesty there and am happy we have been able to meet halfway at the end of it all. I admit I am blindsided to these cues since I was never on TFM/Mayyam and am completely clueless about these triggers.  Not that I would have changed the title had I been aware once I had decided to design the piece this way; I am as obstinate as IR that way.    But yes, I could make out that there's some baggage at work when people including dagalti initially were under the impression that BR had authored the piece. I used to make lonely expeditions in the early/mid noughties, tracking raaga.com for mp3 streaming of new IR films with mostly nobody to discuss them with.  Little did I know that all these 'adventures' were taking place in some part of the WWW.

app_engine wrote:Now our vijayr is harping on pallavi-saraNam-pallavi as a big problem there in one of the comments. (Didn't read the whole comment as I got impatient).

One has to only look at two biggest hit albums of 1991 (i.e. the year prior to the "feedbacker" arrival late 1992 )

thaLabathy & gunA.

Do I have to list the songs and their varied structures?

However, this is not something suddenly happening in 1991. Look at another fantastic year, 1985 and the two famed albums mudhal mariyAdhai and sindhu bhairavi.

People should not simply pick on IR for trivial things such as traditional Indian film song structure as if it were imposed on people by IR.

Whenever the film / mileau gave scope for variations, he was not only happy to shower his blessings but did that with his stamp of style!

If we start listing his "non-standard-structure-song-list", that will be another thread that can run into many pages!

சும்மா வாய்க்கு வந்ததெல்லாம் பேசி ராசாவைக்குத்துவதற்கு ஒரு இடம் உண்டாக்கிக் கொடுப்பதை ரங்கன் வழக்கமாக்கி வருகிறார்.

நாம் எச்சரிக்கையுடன் அதைத்தவிர்ப்பது உடல்நலத்துக்கு நல்லது!

Everybody was using pallavi-charanam/mukda-antara in 99% film songs before ARR.  Who himself has also used pallavi-charanam in many more songs than perhaps his fanboys would care to admit.  This is the thing:  I think IR sees himself as the last of the mohicans and will hold up the film music tradition of the country for as long as he can.  I don't see anything wrong with that per se.  99% songs in Western popular music (by popular I mean blues, rock, pop, country) are also verse-chorus based with NO pallavi-charanam format except for few cases like ABBA's I Do I Do.  So adhu mattum problem illaya?  I will bring this up in the BR thread, actually.  It's not about repetition, it's just about preserving tradition.

I had written about the Raja - Rahman thing lot back with data long back. 

Here is 1994 Part 1: https://onlyraja.wordpress.com/2012/08/24/1994-an-analysis-part-1/

Here is 1994 Part 2: https://onlyraja.wordpress.com/2012/08/24/1994-an-analysis-part-2/

Here is my analysis of 1995

Part 1: https://onlyraja.wordpress.com/2013/03/31/1995-the-musical-year-of-raja-part-1/
Part 2: https://onlyraja.wordpress.com/2013/03/31/1995-the-musical-year-of-raja-part-2/
Part 3: https://onlyraja.wordpress.com/2013/04/15/1995-musical-year-of-raja-part-3/

The initial writeup about my methodology of analyzing Raja and his response to 90s: https://onlyraja.wordpress.com/2012/08/07/initial-writeup/

Looks like we have to publish Suresh's articles in every platform in every geo so that www is a better place.

I did not read all the posts here fully nor the blog referred here. Just a passing glance. CK and others are a bit late to the IR-ARR comparison party :-) by about 15-20 years. All this were discussed ad nauseum by amateur MDs (who had SPB sing for him once) and amateur lyricists and some indie directors. Yes, IR repeated somethings, made some boring music or you can even call it crap, he got influenced .. he got inspired !!. So after being in this forum for almost 20 years and listening to his work, now I can say, "So what ?". 
Tell me something more interesting :-)

Next part of that niyOgi thodar in patrikai.com:
https://www.patrikai.com/why-should-celebrate-ilayaraja-series-4-hayo-laalaaa-niyohi/

Talks about IR & rAgA etc

kiru wrote:I did not read all the posts here fully nor the blog referred here. Just a passing glance. CK and others are a bit late to the IR-ARR comparison party :-) by about 15-20 years.

ஆனா அதுல என்ன வேடிக்கைன்னு பாருங்க - பரத்வாஜ் ரங்கன் ப்ளாக்ல கூடுதல் கருத்துக்கள் வருவதும், வாதங்கள் நடப்பதும் 20 வருஷமா tfmpage-ல் தொடங்கி அடித்துப்பிழிந்து சக்கையாக்கிய ஒன்றுக்குத்தான் Not this many commenters bother about his other blA-blA

Raaga_Suresh wrote:Here is my analysis of 1995

Part 1: https://onlyraja.wordpress.com/2013/03/31/1995-the-musical-year-of-raja-part-1/
Part 2: https://onlyraja.wordpress.com/2013/03/31/1995-the-musical-year-of-raja-part-2/
Part 3: https://onlyraja.wordpress.com/2013/04/15/1995-musical-year-of-raja-part-3/

Sureshji,
nanRi for reminding that wonderful series of posts. (Is there still some balance in that account )

BTW, I see Madan / rothrocks / CK's long comment below your 1995 part 3 above, from the year 2013.

Just to point out that it is not a sudden / recent "eurEkA" moment for him based on adhO mEga oorvalam. That way, don't know if it were a "hasty job" to write that BRangan blog post

Possibly something he had formed as a personal opinion over years

Raaga_Suresh wrote:Here is my analysis of 1995

Part 1: https://onlyraja.wordpress.com/2013/03/31/1995-the-musical-year-of-raja-part-1/
Part 2: https://onlyraja.wordpress.com/2013/03/31/1995-the-musical-year-of-raja-part-2/
Part 3: https://onlyraja.wordpress.com/2013/04/15/1995-musical-year-of-raja-part-3/

Ultimate!

The competitor in Raja was meeting the challenge of those time musically and not through external glitz and glamour. He was changing his music and this would in due course lead to some outstanding albums in latter days like ‘Time’ all the way to ‘Nee Dhane En Ponvasantham’. As an outstanding musician, the only way he could react was through music and not through sound and that is what Raja was doing. Unfortunately his musical best was ignored largely by the public. To his credit Raja kept at it and never gave up. That is why we now have that monster album in NEPV.

Guess we can add songs like Edayabaagilu and few more songs too in btw Time and NEPV!

Since IR - ARR topic is going... my few cents


After 25 years of seeing both Raja and Rahman, on a பருந்துப்பார்வை, in my very humble opinion, if i were to rate both Raja and Rahman in few sentences, which somewhat satisfies Rahman fans too, it is like below :-

Raja won Musically and Emotionally like Nobody!
Rahman won Commercially and Geographically like Nobody!

We Raja Fans, though feel very happy about the commercial success Raja has got in various instances, would always like to settle with Music(and its technicality) and Emotions his Music evokes, than commercial success, market, etc!

Listening to MKTbaagavadhar songs non stop for 2 days..
The fidelity of the composition and steadfast adherence to the Raaga is so striking.
In many ways Raaja reflects the same 'discipline' in his songs with an added element of 'character'.
Every bhagavadhar song is ,well a 'bhagavadhar' song. He ingrains himself in every swaram and every sangadhi.
Raaja does the reverse, his singers are 'actors' playing the characters and reflecting the language and tone of 
the character truthfully. So he implements a 'fidelity of dramatic narration' in his songs.
If you consider this from the standpoint of a creator, it is such a risky proposition.
If the dramatic context and narrative fails, the song will also fail. Meaning it is almost useless as a standalone piece
 bearing the name of the composer. Many a times, the dramatic narrative involves the flow of the song interrupted or completely
 paused. Raaja doesnt create a template piece for the album and a chopped tailored track for the sound track, rather he weaves the 
 song with all its morphological imperfections to suit the narration. It is an ultimate sacrifice because the idea upon which the 
song is created could be so potentially good, yet the composer in this case also acts as a music director or music editor and 
 mercilessly curtails it within the parameters of the drama surrounding it. It is one of the most supreme sacrifices I can think of 
artistically. As I write this, I am reminded of "Nenachu nenachu" song from Sethu - its abrupt closure was so shocking while hearing it
 and when Bala takes its abruptness to heighten the drama on screen, it had 100X the impact. Raaja always serviced the drama unmindful of 
 tangential laurels he could have cornered by letting the song prolong in a CD..

crimson king wrote:

app_engine wrote:Now our vijayr is harping on pallavi-saraNam-pallavi as a big problem there in one of the comments. (Didn't read the whole comment as I got impatient).

One has to only look at two biggest hit albums of 1991 (i.e. the year prior to the "feedbacker" arrival late 1992 )

thaLabathy & gunA.

Do I have to list the songs and their varied structures?

However, this is not something suddenly happening in 1991. Look at another fantastic year, 1985 and the two famed albums mudhal mariyAdhai and sindhu bhairavi.

People should not simply pick on IR for trivial things such as traditional Indian film song structure as if it were imposed on people by IR.

Whenever the film / mileau gave scope for variations, he was not only happy to shower his blessings but did that with his stamp of style!

If we start listing his "non-standard-structure-song-list", that will be another thread that can run into many pages!

சும்மா வாய்க்கு வந்ததெல்லாம் பேசி ராசாவைக்குத்துவதற்கு ஒரு இடம் உண்டாக்கிக் கொடுப்பதை ரங்கன் வழக்கமாக்கி வருகிறார்.

நாம் எச்சரிக்கையுடன் அதைத்தவிர்ப்பது உடல்நலத்துக்கு நல்லது!

This whole thing is stupid.  IR is so great at orchestration that as his fans we look forward to the orchestration in prelude and the pieces between the pallavi and saranam in the songs.  That is the magic of his songs.  Lesser MDs who are not great at orchestration do away with that and sell it as innovation for stupid people who buy into it.  And these idiots then question why IR doesnt do more of that?  Example of increasing stupidity in Kaliyugam

ank wrote:
This whole thing is stupid.  IR is so great at orchestration that as his fans we look forward to the orchestration in prelude and the pieces between the pallavi and saranam in the songs.  That is the magic of his songs.  Lesser MDs who are not great at orchestration do away with that and sell it as innovation for stupid people who buy into it.

Exactly!

Last evening they played 'vachcha pArva theeradhudee' on raajafm.com and I'm hearing this song after a long gap.

I can still remember what pullarippu I was getting with those ludes when this song came in radio those days - got the same special feeling (almost) when listening yesterday.

OTOH, the supposedly "main course" (pallavi-saraNam), though is excellent, is not the main attraction for me. In a way, when the interlude prior to the second saraNam ends, the song practically ends for me That is, if not for some heavy bass score and some instrumental "responses" to the singer's call.

Not just in this song, in many such cases!