I have never seen so elaborate review about any ARR album by any media till now. I wish every album gets this treatment. Felt very happy to see that the reviwer did not boiled down the review to mere good or bad or number of stars but he analyzed each track and presented his feelings..Nice treatment.
Raghu --- In arrahmanfans@yahoogroups.com, Gopal Srinivasan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > http://brangan.easyjournal.com/entry.aspx?eid=3167273 > > Music Review: Guru > > GURU > The New Sunday Express - November 26, 2006 > > AR Rahman's latest album for Mani Ratnam is never less than fascinating, and it showcases the > musician as much as his music. > > > Picture courtesy: ourbollywood.com > > IF someone were to make a movie about me listening to a new album by AR Rahman, the visuals > would be like those in the old cartoons where there's this man with an angel fluttering above > him on one side and the devil on the other, each alternately whispering good and bad. I'm > playing Barso re from Guru, and the angel says, "How beautifully Shreya Ghosal has sung this!" > And the devil says, "Yes, but it took you three listens just to get a handle on the bloody > melody lines. It's as if she's following the instructions of a baton being twirled by the > wind." And the angel says, "And why is that a problem? Not every tune has to be instantly > hummable." And the devil says, "But this chick here is singing about bullock-cart bells and > swings on mango trees, and that sort of rusticity demands a simple folk tune." And the angel > says, "Since when has fidelity to real life been important to art? You're going into the realm > of logic. Why don't you just listen to the music and see, for instance, how marvellously the > flute keeps flirting with the voice!" And the devil says, "But what's with the irritating burst > of drums that sounds like firecrackers going off in a tin can?" > > And on and on it goes. Sometime in the latter part of the nineties, Rahman's music achieved the > kind of burnished glow that only comes from the perfect balance of personal creativity and > public satisfaction. Dil Se, Taal, Earth... Overnight, the composer got rid of the awkward > pauses that would sometimes bring the mood of a song to a grinding halt (the suspended-in-time > sitar strains after the mukhda of Pyaar yeh in Rangeela, for instance). He ironed out his tune > transitions. He smoothened out his interludes the one thing he never appeared to give much > thought to earlier. (I still recall how startled I was when I first listened to the goosefleshy > Jiya jale, with that plaintive sarangi bracketing the opening line of the antara without > interrupting for a second the rhythm of the piece.) And where his earlier numbers were (mostly) > merely catchy and fun, his work at this point became gifts that would keep on giving. Every > time you heard a song, you'd discover something new, and yet, if you didn't want to dig into > them all that much, they were still well catchy and fun. > > And now, it appears Rahman has completed his transition to the other extreme, with albums that > are more personal, more idiosyncratic I thought I heard the low-throbbing hum of a lightsabre > towards the end of Barso re and, therefore, infinitely more fascinating. There's very little > in his music that's instantly catchy and fun anymore, because he's no longer just making > soundtracks; he's painting soundscapes. Over the years, our concept of the Film Album has been > a collection of songs of five to six different moods, and the skill of the composers was > revealed in the way they worked around these limitations. It's not that they never > experimented, but these experimentations seldom interfered with the surface of the song and > so the casual listener still came away with something to hum after one round of radio play. But > Rahman doesn't seem to care about any of this which is really the only way for a pure > musician to work. (Of course, you could argue that a music director for a movie can't afford to > be a "pure musician", and you would be right in a way.) The sound of Guru is the sound of a > musician trying to break free, and given the frequently unexpected detours in the compositions > here, you can almost imagine Mani Ratnam pulling Rahman aside and pleading, "Boss, give them... > something." > > That's probably why each song in Guru is uncharacteristically stuffed to the gills with > orchestration that sometimes suffocates Gulzar's words. That's probably why each song is filled > with chorusey bits dum tara dum tara, or na na re na re, or mayya mayya, or yammo yammo > that seem like sops to the audience; if they can't whistle the tricky melodies, there are at > least these other things to latch on to. And, inevitably, these decisions leave behind a wake > of mild dissatisfaction especially in the case of Tere bina. This is a breathtakingly > beautiful composition that describes life without a loved one, and this thought is elevated by > a typically Gulzarian metaphor: beswaadi ratiyaan, flavourless nights. Here's the hero, > envisioning (in Rahman's soaring vocals) the emptiness that would result in the absence of his > woman, and you want the jaggedness of the emotion to linger but the pat, persistent dum tara > refrain (which, as a line of music, is admittedly lovely) keeps dragging the song back into a > neutral comfort zone. I felt this even more when Chinmayee began to sing, her voice apparently > laden with the collective weight of the world's romantic longing. She's so magnificent, you > can't help asking of Rahman: Why settle for merely caressing the heart when there's potential > in the song to pierce the soul? > > But Ek lo ek muft gets it delightfully right from the tipsy swagger of Bappi Lahiri's > enunciation (just wait till you hear his Guroooo ki gudiya) to the spirited chorus to the perky > percussion that never once gets in the way of Gulzar's charming ode to pairs. More foot-tapping > arrives courtesy Baazi laga and Mayya, the former with infectious Latin flourishes, the latter > with a sultry Middle-Eastern feel. These along with the anthemic Jaage hain (the crushed, > leave-me-alone hopelessness of whose lyrics appear at odds with the increasingly rousing > arrangements; it made me imagine a violin solo being executed by a symphony orchestra) are > the soundscapes I was talking about. They are as-far-as-eye-can-see rather, ear-can-hear > expanses of layering and texture and ambience that you can't imagine from another composer. > Your inner-devil could whine that these songs are a tad overcooked, but the angel would be too > drunk on the sounds to care. That leaves us with Ae hairat-e-aashiqui, a number that wouldn't > have been out of place in a Muslim social with Rajendra Kumar and Sadhana. (Or, perhaps > Pakeezah, considering the line Pairon se zameen laga mat is but a once-removed variation on > Aapke paon dekhe...) The quasi-qawwali (you can hear the clapping in your head) is brilliantly > rendered by Hariharan, whose velvet voice combined with the velvet words when was the last > time you heard the e bridge hairat and aashiqui, astonishment and ardour? brings back a > long-ago era where passion meant poetry, poetry meant passion. That Rahman can transport > himself as comfortably into that world is all that's needed to silence both angel and devil. >
