A.R.Rahman needs no introduction. He is arguably the most internationally recognized Indian music director ever. He is the only Indian music director to have won the Oscar, though many people believe his Oscar winning composition 'Jai Ho' was nowhere near his best. To his millions of fans, he is the best composer in the world.
But I think there is one quality that is seriously missing in his music. No doubt he delivered and continues to deliver so many hit numbers. But how many of those hit numbers listeners can hum along? Not even a handful. Fans may disagree. But there are very few Rahman songs that we can hum along. It is very difficult to even clearly understand the lyrics of his songs. That's probably why his super duper hit numbers just vanish from the memory and from the tongues of people very quickly, within two months after they released. Super hit songs of earlier music directors and very few current music directors are remembered for a long time, but not Rahman's songs.
Having said that, there is no denying that Rahman is the trendsetter, the path breaker, especially in the south Indian cinema. Almost all the new music directors try to ape Rahman. Their songs may not be as good as those of Rahman, but certainly lack the same 'hummbale' quality. This 'short living' quality, which is a result of what I call 'the Rahman effect', has slowly but certainly crept into the music of Tamil and Telugu cinema. Hindi cinema is yet to be influenced; it still produces some hummable numbers.
But I think there is one quality that is seriously missing in his music. No doubt he delivered and continues to deliver so many hit numbers. But how many of those hit numbers listeners can hum along? Not even a handful. Fans may disagree. But there are very few Rahman songs that we can hum along. It is very difficult to even clearly understand the lyrics of his songs. That's probably why his super duper hit numbers just vanish from the memory and from the tongues of people very quickly, within two months after they released. Super hit songs of earlier music directors and very few current music directors are remembered for a long time, but not Rahman's songs.
Having said that, there is no denying that Rahman is the trendsetter, the path breaker, especially in the south Indian cinema. Almost all the new music directors try to ape Rahman. Their songs may not be as good as those of Rahman, but certainly lack the same 'hummbale' quality. This 'short living' quality, which is a result of what I call 'the Rahman effect', has slowly but certainly crept into the music of Tamil and Telugu cinema. Hindi cinema is yet to be influenced; it still produces some hummable numbers.
1 comment:
You are absolutely right ... I can still hum to the songs of Roja and Bombay but not Robot or even Slumdog Millionaire, just because the lyrics were in Hindi/Telugu and understandable whereas in the latest songs there is lot of noise than music. But then there are still some very good ones these days too, my most recent favorite being Vintunnava ... from Ye maya chesaave...
Post a Comment