Milliblog Weeklies – India’s only multilingual, weekly new music playlist. Week 10:
On | On
(Songs that are not available on Saavn or Apple Music are in the form of YouTube embeds, below)
A note on each song in the playlist.
—
Vaadi (Arjun, Pop): What a surprise listening to Vidyasagar’s superhit Tamil song from 2001 (http://bit.ly/2nCuGZZ, Alli Thandha Vaanam)! Sri Lankan-born UK-based Arjun uses the Tamil song as a base to layer his bubblegum pop. It works for sheer nostalgic value!
Sauce (Man of the Woods, Justin Timberlake): This Timbaland, Danja and Timberlake-produced song’s prelude is the viral 2017 Best Buy employee video (http://bit.ly/2nBqWbi)! The song, with adequately enjoyable and ample funk that’s so very Timbaland!
Midnight Summer Jam (Man of the Woods, Justin Timberlake): The only other song that appealed to me from Justin Timberlake’s brand new album. It fits right into his last album, The 20/20 Experience, with a 70s funk reimagined for current times, with a fantastic, extended outro.
Edo Jarige (Needi Naadhi Oke Katha, Telugu): Suresh Bobbili, who scored pretty good music in 2017’s Maa Abbayi, has everything going for in this Rahman’ish song, right up to the violin interlude and the Thenkizhakku Cheemayile’ish melody! Chinmayi rocks the rendition, as usual.
Oka Nuvvu (Gayatri, Telugu): Thaman is in in a pretty confident form these days. Gayatri is above average work too, with Oka nuvvu being the best song. Gorgeous violins on serene keys, and a lovely melody sung so well by Jubin Nautiyal & Shreya Ghoshal.
Sarasamaha (Gayatri, Telugu): There’s a Vidyasagar’ish flourish in this song that’s so alluring! Ramya Behara is the song’s stunning highlight given the way she sings it so confidently, while also imbuing the semi-classical melody with an impish edge.
Thella Thella (Gayatri, Telugu): The melody of Thella Thella is deeply engaging! It reminded me of the Nada Nama Kriya raaga-based bhajan, Paahi paahi jagan. Madhu Balakrishnan, in his best Yesudas-mode, seems the perfect fit for this tune, accentuated by Thaman’s percussion.
Gazab ka hai din (Dil Juunglee, Hindi): Tanishk Bagchi remixes Anand-Milind’s masterful inspiration from Neil Diamond’s Play me. The remix using Tanishk’s own original phrases more than the source, layers it pretty well together! Jubin Nautiyal & Prakriti Kakar are fantastic!
Jeeva sakhi (Tagaru, Kannada): Tagaru is turning out to be one phenomenal soundtrack. Charan Raj takes up the vocals himself for the haunting tune, with some superb guitar and a stupendous solo flute outro, played by Varijashree Venugopal!
Pushpa (Touch Chesi Chudu, Telugu): Pritam’s JAM makes its Telugu debut with Touch Chesi Chudu! Ashish Pandit for JAM8 composes Pushpa, a faux-retro style tune that goes perfectly with Ravi Teja’s well-known onscreen shenanigans. Nakash Aziz sings it with appropriate zing.
Neer maathalam (Aami, Malayalam): M.Jayachandran’s tune is a serene Malayalam melody harking back to a different period, brilliantly sung by Shreya Ghoshal, punctuated by Arnab Dutta’s Bengali phrases, reflecting Kamala Das’s Calcutta days.
Oru mozhi parayam (IRA, Malayalam): That very Gopi Sundar melody! The second interlude, in particular, is so symbolic of Gopi’s template! The melody is nice enough, albeit a bit too familiar, though Vijay Yesudas & Mridula Warrier make a difference.
Saarae (Queen, Malayalam): Monsoon Mangoes-fame Jakes Bejoy’s recent Tamil film Mannar Vagayara was middling too! But, he does score in this song from Queen, using the Rama rama pahimam bhajan line as a hook for a catchy engineering college song!
Vidiyarkaalai nilave (MaMaKiKi, Tamil): M S Jones Rupert’s debut is a pretty listenable melody, with a simple, likeable tune, orchestrated appropriately too. Vijay Bhaskar’s lyrics and Vimal Vijayan’s singing props the song considerably.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhS2Kr8hKQM
—