Dear Taimur, I love your interest in music and appreciate your efforts in exploring and listening to various AR songs. What I don't love is the usage of words when you criticize...again, it's the usage of words and not the criticism itself.
Regarding the below post of yours, is there a confusion?? You say his music has lost uniqueness. On the contrary, you also say his music is not universal...I'm not getting the point here... I understand how much we still love 90's music but I strongly feel that's not the criterion for judging todays music, by any means, and that too just for the reason that those 90's songs made him popular... If you notice keenly, it's the new 'trend' that he introduced in the Indian film music that made him popular and unique...Now it's 20 years, and it can't be new any more...We see so many here following that style of music...To remain unique in this scenario, one needs to innovate and that's what he is constantly trying to do...So it is as simple as to forget the old song and keep creating something new and fresh...You keep innovating, you will excel, be it in any field...If you keep repeating, the job gets monotonous, tiresome, and will die soon, again be it in any field...And it just gets tougher and tougher in today's scenario with the exponential growth of listeners / fans of AR's music!! I'm not meaning that AR is perfect in every song that he composes...Inspite of honest attempts, during the process of innovation / experimenting, he has failed at times which is very human...In a nutshell, I'm just trying to say that expecting every song by AR to be a masterpiece or to sound like 90's songs is an overkill... On 8/30/10, Taimur Nadeem <taimur.nad...@yahoo.com> wrote: > AJ you hit the bulls eye the "INDIAN A R RAHMAN" , the indian flavour in > contemporary music no matter what genre A R RAHMAN took , thats what used to > be in SIR'S music. that made him unique, just one in the world. that made > him a musical wizard , combining the beauty of indian music with modern > themes. > > yes i miss that A R RAHMAN. but the problem is raavan d6 JA didnt had the > magic of that standard of music. > > today A R RAHMAN's muisc is mixing up with west , uniqueness lacking. take > DILse , saaathiya , hum se hai muqabla, jeans ,thiruda thiruda contemporary > indian music at its peak . the music of these albums is completely unique . > even take lagaan meenaxi mangal panday classic these three albums are. > take Maa tijhe salam wow wow , what contemporary masterpiece it is. > > when A R RAHMAN used to sit in small dark studio in chennai , he produced > world class music, now that he has studio's in every corner of the world , > he is famous in every corner of the world , he has lost universality in his > music, i feel . A R RAHMAN will surely return back to his indian magic one > day. > > and tell you first time i have affirmed your mail WOW. > > REGARDS, > > taimur > > --- On Mon, 8/30/10, AJ <purev...@yahoo.com> wrote: > > > From: AJ <purev...@yahoo.com> > Subject: [arr] Roja..........still sounds amazing........and my take on > general trends.... > To: arrahmanfans@yahoogroups.com > Date: Monday, August 30, 2010, 2:34 AM > > > > > > > Can't believe it.......heard Roja today after ages and the sounds are still > so clean, fresh, and breezy...not sounding that outdated at all, despite it > being 18 years old. Amazing compositions for ARR's debut......melodious, > sweet, earthy, straight to the heart. > > If there was one thing that I liked about ARR of the 90s that I don't hear > much of these days is that ARR's songs back then had a lot more breathing > room.......there was more space in the songs and the song arrangements were > not as dense as they are today. The songs just breathed easier back then it > seems, if I were to make a very broad and general comparison to today's > songs. ARR also used minimal loops and more spacious arrangements, so you > could hear more of "silence" in the slower compositions. "Tu Hi Re" is a > great example of that. I hope you understand what I mean. Again, these are > just observations of mine. I like his past songs equally to his current > songs in general, but there are some broad differences, signifying Rahman's > evolution as an artist and adding and subtracting elements of his > compositional style and sound over time. I am just bowled over how NONE of > his songs from the 1990s sound outdated whatsoever even today. That says > volumes. > > One more thing......songs in those days...1990s to early 2000s in general > were more "Indian" sounding....not just with ARR, but with other MDs too. > The trend in bollywood and perhaps other industries too is to have more > Western and global musical styles in film music with gradual shifting away > from the ethnic Indian flavor of songs.....not completely, but the trend is > there. ARR too used to have more "ethnic Indian" sounding albums back then, > even for contemporary films like Saathiya, Taal, Dil Se that were not period > films. Later, the "Ethnic Indian" sound would be confined mostly to period > film scores or situational numbers, but with some exceptions. Delhi 6, > Raavan, and Jodha Akbar are the 3 most Indian sounding albums recently and > look how beautifully all 3 music albums were received and raved about. I > think a lot of people are missing more of the "Indian" Rahman. Rahman's > music over time has become more "international" and less "Indian" as a > general > trend....again with exceptions here and there. > > > > > > > > > > -- Cheers, Madhavan.R Be a Music Fan; not a Music Pirate!
