First among the equals - S Janaki, who sang the best in rAsA music!

plum wrote: the charanams start off with a restrained outpouring, just as the mother’s departed soul recalls the moments of bliss, as if lamenting it, and it reaches a massive proportion at “nee pirinja samayam mudhal nAn pirinja nimisham varE”..that’s a full-blown oppAri at the change in circumstance. As you heard it, I bet your heart cried and pounced and repeatedly struck you hard as if mourning a loss , each of you who are reading this and heard this song. Just go back, hear it, and challenge me if you didn’t get that feeling as I describe it.

Now, that is Raja, and no matter how much other fans claim the same for their composers – and mind you, I ahve never seen anyone actually claiming it pro-actively for their composer especially the post-IR commercial superstar MD fans, it is just that when we point out such phenomenal heart-stringing music from IR, they just copy and reuse a few weeks later, our words for their man’s music, just to record in history that their man also did it. Their conscience knows that beyond “soothing the soul” and “sufiana”, there is no other heart-touching feature of IR proportions in their man’s music.

In older MD’s case, it was always virtuosity and tune gamakams, tune twists, and unusual use of Ragas that were discussed. It is only with Raja that I see fans actually feeling minute emotions, and being simulated with a ‘state of mind’ of a moment that is encapsulated in the situation of the song.

Now that I have written so eloquently about this effect, you’ll find that other MD’s fans will copy and reuse this randomly for their man just so taht they can claim the same effect from their MD but their conscience, and you, my dear IR fan, know that only IR is capable of that.

Which is why he is the BGM king. BGM is all about stoking the emotions of the situation and capturing the mind-state of the characters involved. Only a man who has understood Cinema and music in their vast range can do proper justice to movie BGM. And no matter how much they project their MDs, truth is nobody has as much exposure to variety of Cinema and variety of Music as Raja. Being an Asst MD for movies ranging from Puttanna Kanagal to Sethumadhavan to tamil family dramas to everything literally under the sun during the 70s is what made IR the Movie-Music monster that he is. A career in Jingle making, with its need and penchant for superficial, catcy 2-minute noodle situations can never prepare you for that. And it hasnt, except in the words of fans, who also cannot articulate it on their own but make do by copying IR fans’ words coming from the heart and induced by IR’s music. Those fans do it just for “varalARU miga mukkiyam” but they know in their heart that they are just making it up for theor political aim of propping up their man. Whereas, whenever we speak ins uch depth about IR’s music, it comes from the heart and only because of the impact made.

When people claim that Roja BGM is in Time magazine therefore it is the best, you can only laugh at his lack of self-esteem. Leave the time magazine, can you articulate abotu why YOU think it is great? This reliance on veLLakAran’s approval, and using it as the only argument betarys their lack of musical inclination or knowledge and just treating IR-ARR like a Ajith-Vijay thing. Not saying all ARR fans are like thsi or something but all ARR fans I know are like this only. Funny guys.

I grew with IR’s music, and when I talk about it, i can talk in the context of the precise emoptional impact it makes, and what are its musical values. Pity if you cannot talk about music and can only advance arguments lik “Spielebrg comes for my man means he is greatest” and “Time magazine says it is greatest”,. Shows your and your idols hollowness, actually.

plum wrote:And see how it makes sense that Rex was reminded of this song while pondering about the Boston tragedy? It is actually a oppAri skilfully wrapped in a melodious tune, and “heart-touching”(nenju-nakking, to use Chennai local parlance) arrangements.

Strangely enough, and perhaps due to the director’s quirky thinking, it is the departed soul that is performing the oppAri. It is as if the dead mother cannot let go of her bonds with her worldly child, and the soul will not rest in peace until she can find her child well-settled emotionally, making up for her loss. What you hear, as a result, is a full-blown oppAri, milking every pore of poignancy in your heart. It blows open every such pore in your heart, which is why you have that sinking feeling by the time the enormously brilliant rakshasi Janaki reaches “ullAsam, anandam kunjOnE…”

Shakespeare said he who doesn’t like music is fit for only treason, strategems and betrayals. Some ideologies proscribe music hearing. Now, you know why.
Well, music is a vast ocean, and the above quotes need to be understood correctly. It is not that those quotes encompass all modes of music. The reason some hard-core ideologies which depend on the recipients having a terrorist-state of mind, proscribe music is to avoid them listening to music such as this song, because it attacks all your soft, poignant pores, and once that floodgate is opened, you lament for the affected, you feel for the sufferors.

There is also the other kind of soothing music, which actually deadens your pain, and like a drug, anasthesises you into a “heighetened staet of being”, laying you inert and unattached. Thats the sufi kind, which kind of makes you peaceful and gives you a temporary bliss for the duration it plays.

But the human mind, being the human mind, is capable of climbing back the murungai maram, once that music stops.

Whereas, with Raja, he touches raw nerves, and prises open your inner wounds, and exposes you to the precise suffering with his music, after which it is impossible for you not to feel aversion to anythign that causes this suffering. It is like a permanent cure. This is the kind of music Shakespeare refers to, the absence of which makes a villain. This is the kind of music terrorist-producers are afraid of. Because once you hear it, you get in touch with your deepest emotional chords, and can feel every dark and stark feeling felt by the sufferors.

plum wrote:Having produced so many words, I still feel the need to point out how just thinking about the tragedy automatically led Rex to play this song in his mind, and as a result, bring it up here. Ofcourse, a Rahman fan would play “Bombay Climax BGM”. But that’s the soothing, sufiana type which makes you feel peaceful, rather than poignant. It kind of acts as a temporary pain-balm but doesnt attack the root cause, and expose that part of your heart which feels – FEELS, mark that word – for suffering, which once you do, you cannot ever forget it. That precision, as @equanimus often refers to, is the hallmark of Raja.

Playing a peaceful, faux-poignant piece for a riot situation is the remit of most musicians,but to go beyond that, and offer a ruthless exposure of the precise nature of suffering, you need Raja

plum wrote:“aataanum mataanum njaanille” …is where the tormented soul pours out its central pain – that of not being there for the kid, for whom it still holds the maternal affection, just as if it were still in the material world. If you dont experience the torment of a helpless mother when you hear that, you, as Shakespeare said, are only fit for treasons, strategems and spoils.

As you can see, the song is tormenting me from yesterday and I am unable to let go…

What the ….theis damned song is still playing in my mind…yOv Rexu, ennOda mind radiova keeRal vizhundha Record-A mAthittiyEyyA?