Milliblog Weeklies – India’s only multilingual, weekly new music playlist.
Week 71: On | On
13 songs, this week. JioSaavn playlist has 12, and is missing the one song from Dharma Prabhu (Lahari Music hasn’t yet shared the song with Saavn?). YouTube is, as usual, trouble, with playlists. Have embedded the 2 playlists below for easier access – NGK and Dharma Prabhu. The YouTube playlist has 9 songs.
Chale Aana – De De Pyaar De (Amaal Mallik) – Hindi: Trust Amaal to infuse life into an otherwise terribly stereotyped (T-series’ish) soundtrack. Armaan Malik relishes the tinge-of-pathos in the melody and it shows. Simple, heartwarming tune, done well.
Chashni – Bharat (Vishal-Shekhar) – Hindi: From the flashy and catchy Slow Motion, Vishal-Shekhar move to a completely different end of the sound with Chashni. The guitar accompanying the Chashni hook (by Aman Moroney) along with the simple lilting rhythm literally makes the song. Abhijeet Srivastava’s soft, pleasant singing seems perfect for the tune.
Thimiranumda & Anbae Peranbae – NGK (Yuvan Shankar Raja) – Tamil: Yuvan’s full musical fervor seems reserved for directors like Selvaraghavan! He produces a cracker of a soundtrack that is short but impactful! Thimiranumda’s soundscape is stunning, with its punchy rhythm and exotic instrumental choices that sits comfortably with the rousing tune. Jithin Raj is perfect for the lead vocals though I wish they had credited the backing vocals too, given their role extends quite considerably for the hook. Anbae Peranbae wears its Vennilave Vennilave flavor very obviously and proudly. Still, with Sid Sriram and Shreya Ghoshal around, the familiar backgrounds gets a fantastic boost, with Yuvan’s melody working effortlessly.
Kanne Kanne – Ayogya (Sam C.S) – Tamil: Well, well, well… this is a surprise! Sam recycles his already lovely, recent Telugu song (called Kanne Kanne too!) from Arjun Suravaram (both owned by Lahari, thankfully, unlike Hip Hop Tamizha’s recent misadventure with Vandhaa Rajavathaan Varuven where he recycled his Telugu song Dhari Chuddu from Krishnarjuna Yudham, in Tamil as Modern Muniyamma… only to see the song being yanked most possibly at the best of the Telugu song’s label, T-series Telugu, again most probably because Saregama owns the Tamil song!). But the recycle is done very craftily. The original Telugu song’s pallavi and anupallavi are missing in Tamil; instead, only the Kanne Kanne hook is used and even more interestingly, that hook is used as the lever to construct an entirely new song. Well played, Sam!
Maalai Saatrinaal – Jasmine (C.Sathya) – Tamil: Another song that’s a wonderful surprise! Sathya remixes the incredibly familiar Andal Purappdu ‘Maalai Saatrinaal’ tune and lyrics that’s fairly common in Tamil Brahmin weddings! The treatment is decidedly modern and interesting enough. If I have a quibble, it’s only with Kharesma Ravichandran’ fangled accent while singing perfectly fine.
Idhivarakepudu – 7 (Chaitan Bharadwaj) – Telugu: Chaitan Bharadwaj’s 2nd single from 7 is not as good as the first one but it definitely sounds good.
Usurula Ethayo – Dharma Prabhu (Justin Prabhakaran) – Tamil: It’s mildly distressing to see very promising composers like Justin Prabhakaran and Nivas K Prasanna produce mediocre stuff like Nivas’ Devarattam and Justin’s single from Monster and 2 more songs from this film (Dharma Prabhu). Thankfully, there’s Usurula Ethayo that holds up Justin’s standard very impressively. The melody starts off slow but Justin layers a lovely and energetic rhythm in the background! And when I saw Yogi Sekar’s name as singer, for a second I confused it with Yogi Babu and was mighty impressed with the singing quality. Then I realized my folly – Sekar vs. Babu 🙂
Oru Pakal – Gramavasees (Prince Rex & Sooraj S Nair) – Malayalam: The song’s Ennavale Adi Ennavale vibes make it a great listen, besides Najim Arshad’s delightful singing. I wonder why he doesn’t sing more, in other languages!
Paadi Njan – Thamaasha (Shahabaz Aman) – Malayalam: Shahabaz composes and sings this song that Rex Vijayan arranges and produces. The tune is earthy and very likeable, but the magic happens beautifully in the music that also includes a string quartet. The sound, as a result, is fantastic, pitching the song to a new high than what the fairly basic tune aims for.
Sunbeam, Hello & Summer Skin – Science City (Parekh & Singh): If Wes Anderson was a musician, he’d perhaps see his films in Parekh & Singh’s soundscape. The duo’s dreampop continues to evoke a mist-filled grassland filled with flowers where you frolic in slow-motion. It’s immensely pleasurable music, though after a point, the tedium does set in given the sameness of sound.
