Week 192: On Spotify | On YouTube
16 songs this week! All the songs are available on YouTube, but Spotify is shockingly missing the first single from Ponniyin Selvan!! It’s not on JioSaavn either! What is TIPS Music (Tamil) up to, seriously?
Tere Hawaale – Laal Singh Chaddha (Pritam) – Hindi: Pritam’s work in Laal Singh Chaddha, in my view, ranks as one of his best – the consistency in the sound and ethos is astounding! The last song, Tere Hawaale, feels like a Sikh prayer as it progresses—with the sound of the harmonium accentuating the effect—and almost sounds like a song by Mithoon, most probably because of Shilpa Rao’s vocals. The signers are stupendously good – Arijit and Shilpa are such a beautiful pair as far as a duet goes!
La Ilaaj – Darlings (Vishal Bhardwaj) – Hindi: Aah, that Vishal Bharadwaj melody! And Arijit to sing it (it was Suresh Wadkar earlier; then Vishal himself). Gulzar’s lines! What else does one want?
Aafat – Liger (Tanishk Bagchi) – Hindi: Incredibly groovy, with a hypnotic background chant-like sound and enjoyable riffs like that Hindi cinema dialog (Chod do mujhe). The tune is perfunctory, but Tanishk keeps the background and the hook consistently engaging!
Mor Mor, Jogan & Paracetamol – Goodluck Jerry (Parag Chhabra) – Hindi: There’s mor (!) than a dash of Amit Trivedi in Mor More. The frenetic, brass-band’ish catchy music layered on top of the folksy singing by Deedar Kaur and Gurlej Akhta has become Amit’s signature sound and Parag inhabits that sound quite well, producing a quirky, foot-tapping number. That Amit-factor gets more acute with Jogan (most probably maps to the Edhuvaraiyo song from Kolamaavu Kokila, at least lyrically), probably because of Romy’s singing too besides the deeply engaging melody. But credit to Parag – he produced a hugely rich tapestry of sounds, and the use of Rupali Jagga and Nikhita Gandhi vocals along with Romy works wonders. The way he pauses the music entirely before launching the ‘Jogan’ hook is brilliant!
What’s with paracetamol in Hindi songs? After Anurag Saikia’s song titled Paracetamol just last month in Panchayat, here’s another one, in Goodluck Jerry! But both songs are tonally completely different! Anurag’s song was a bawdy ‘item song’, while Parag’s song, turns into a lovely melody thanks to beautiful singing by Jubin Nautiyal!
The other songs, like Jhand Ba (the possible equivalent of Orey Oru song from Kolamaavu Kokila) and Cutie Cutie (maps to Kalyaana Vayasu quite obviously) don’t work as effectively, though.
Tinka – HIT: The First Case (Manan Bhardwaj) – Hindi: It’s a coincidence, but the new Tinka from HIT has the same moody sound from Karam’s (2005) Tinka Tinka sung by Priyanka Chopra (music: Vishal-Shekhar). Of course, unlike the earlier Tinka, this one is brooding, and not happy. Jubin carries the song’s mood brilliantly with his searing vocals ably supported by the superb trumpets!
Yaad – Roposo Jamroom (Mukund Suryawanshi, Ft. Sonu Nigam) – Indipop/Hindi: What a lovely song! Mukund’s melody is nice in a perfunctory way, but the magnificent highlight is Sonu Nigam’s singing. He lifts almost every line with his voice and his singing prowess, while also thoroughly enjoying every intonation!
Ponni Nadhi – PS1/Ponniyin Selvan (A R Rahman) – Tamil: A catchy song from Rahman that deserved a singer other than him. It becomes particularly obvious in some of the more showy lines like ‘Andho naan ivvazhaginiley’ and ‘Chozha silathaan ivalo’ which scream for a better singer to lift the song. To be fair, the tune is great, and the chorus/backing vocals are the one that significantly props the song. The lack of a good singer in Tamil is made more acute when you hear the same song in Kannada, sung brilliantly by Nakul Abhyankar, and in Malayalam, sung by Alphonse!
Thenmozhi – Thiruchitrambalam (Anirudh) – Tamil: Simple, lilting melody by Anirudh that’s a tad too predictable and familiar in the anupallavi. But Santhosh’s voice adds new life to the song, though this seems tailor-made for Dhanush’s own vocals!
Kannamma – Ben Human (Indipop) – Tamil: Ben’s body of work has been consistently good. I recall quite liking the vibe of his some of his recent songs like Single Superstar, Hey Zara, and Va En Thozhi. But unlike those songs where he composed his music himself (along with a co-composer like Tosh Nanda), he gets a mainstream composer like Achu Rajamani for this new song. And Achu’s music is definitely an asset here – it makes it seem like Suresh Peters is singing a Michael Jackson song. At least that’s the vibe here and is totally enjoyable!
Siri Siri Muvvallona – Ranga Ranga Vaibhavanga (Devi Sri Prasad) – Telugu: This is that side of DSP’s side where he shuns his mass sound and opts for Raja’ish sound instead… very convincingly, at that! The melody is lovely, and the rhythm is thoroughly addictive though quite simple. Shreya Ghoshal is, as usual, fantastic, but it is Javed Ali’s addition that is striking, particularly the second interlude! The Ilayaraja’esque flavor is at its strongest in the bridge that DSP builds in the last line of the pallavi, anupallvi, and charanam… the one that brings it back to the first line! That…!
Adirindey – Macherla Niyojakavargam (Mahathi Swara Sagar) – Telugu: Mani Sharma’s son seems to have a special knack for getting the songs very right for Nithin. After Bheeshma’s Whattey Beauty, here’s another winner from the combo! The composer makes a smart decision of roping in Kannada singer Sanjith Hegde to sing the song – Sanjith has been relatively new to Telugu music and his fresh voice adds a fantastic sheen to the catchy tune. Also, Mahathi avoids a specific hook and instead focuses on the overall melody – this too works in the song’s favor!
Kommallo – High Way (Simon K. King) – Telugu: Another song that gains so much from the choice of the singer! Here, Simon picks Sanah Moidutty to lead the song and that adds so much to the breezy melody with a winsome chorus! There are shades of Rahman’s Uzhavan-style flutes in the interlude, incidentally!
Badharile – 19(1)(a) (Govind Vasantha) – Malayalam: Gorgeous melody by Govind Vasantha that fits the Nikah theme. Veetrag sounds so much like Hariharan, and holds the song beautifully, while the chorus adds solid heft too!
Summer High – AP Dhillon (Indipop) – Punjabi: Wow… I couldn’t get enough of this song! The synthpop vibe is terrific, and Punjabi being sung for that sound makes it all the more interesting and alluring!
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