Post Swades and pre Jodha Akbar, I of course enjoyed every ARR release. But, there was always that longing feeling for something more, which did not necessarily reflect the quality of the music for that album. Yes, I did feel disappointed with perhaps 1 or 2 songs of an album, but that didn't much explain the lingering thirst. Perhaps it was the long waits in between albums.
In any case, 2008 has been an extremely thirst quenching year for me. With Jodha Akbar followed by Ada and Jaane Tu, I haven't felt this immensely satisfied with ARR's music in quite some time. When I listen to these three albums, there isn't a single song that I could label as average even for ARR's standards (ok, maybe the Pappu song......but even that one is unique). I listened to these three soundtracks in a row the other day and man, what a journey of music bliss and utter musical fulfillment that I haven't felt in a long time. Yes, the fact that these albums have released in close temporal proximity does account for some of this feeling, but the sheer quality of the music is just astounding. (You can say what you want about the credits and talents of other music director, but the fact is that there is no other MD that comes even close to ARR's musical force. Whoever may be labeled as number 2, they are still leaps and bounds behind ARR's throne. And forget sales......they don't account for the greatness that I'm talking about.) I think a large factor which contributes to this major thirst quenching feeling is the unadulterated, pure, crisp sound quality with each album with minimal noise and clutter. I have been missing this "sound" for a long time from Rahman and I feel so grateful that he has returned to his roots so to speak in this sense. Like I said, I enjoyed Guru, RDB, Mangal Pandey, Bose immensely from a pure music standpoint, but the X factor was still there that made me long for more. That X factor is Rahman's forte......sonic quality! Thank you Rahman Saab for getting it right this time with the sonic production and creating 3 brilliant masterpieces within a fortnight of one another! Musical heaven here on earth!
