Milliblog Weeklies – India’s only multilingual, weekly new music playlist.
Week 83: On | On
12 songs this week. JioSaavn is missing Iniyen Arukil from Age 30, which anyway needs to be seen along with the video (embedded below). YouTube playlist has only 9 songs.
Dil Mein Mars Hai – Mission Mangal (Amit Trivedi) – Hindi: Amit picks a not from his Aiyyaa repertoire for this corny and funky song. The background chorus chanting assorted ‘Mangalam’ (including dash Mangalam!) adds considerable mirth, while Benny and Vibha carry the main tune very well.
Doshthe Takkaru, Naan Varuvean & Yetu Pone/Kareyuveya/Mazhamegham – Dear Comrade (Justin Prabhakaran) – Tamil/Telugu/Kannada/Malayalam: This is not a good week for composers singing their own songs, and Justin Prabhakaran, of all people, falling in that zone seems really awkward. And that too, when the Kannada, Malayalam versions of the same song, by Sooraj Santhosh, and the Telugu version by Kaala Bhairava, are so much better sung. The tune is very nice, incidentally, with a sweeping pathos feel to it that really needed a good singer like Kaala Bhairava or Sooraj, even for Tamil.
Doshthe Takkaru, thankfully, doesn’t have any such issues. Sung by Naresh Iyer, this is a punchy friendship anthem that flows so well, with its foot-tapping rhythm and Nadaswaram layer alternating with the softer, melodic parts in perfect sync. And Naan Varuvean is outstanding! A really heartwarming melody that took me back to Rahman’s early melodies when he was really interested in creating highly layered music (unlike his fairly bland current state). Justin’s layers in Naan Varuvean offer a bewildering range, but he blends them all so beautifully and cohesively. And the singers too – Sathyaprakash D and Aishwarya Ravichandran – are phenomenally good! That ‘Vaa Vaa’ hook is quite something else!! This is such an assured and so well put-together composition from Justin.
Aatha Valikkudhu – A1 (Santhosh Narayanan) – Tamil: This is a short track written and sung by Sean Roldan. And when Motta Rajendran starts the song with his dialog, I wondered if it was Sean or Rajendran, given both sound kinda similar with their gruffy voices. But Sean sounds surprisingly smoother than his usual self in the main song, a racy, funky tune that you wished was longer!
Agalaathey – Nerkonda Paarvai (Yuvan Shankar Raja) – Tamil: Agalaathey is a lovely, very-Yuvan tune with a fantastic smattering of EDM that deserved a male singer who is not Yuvan. The composer single-handedly lifts the song with his tune, sound and overall packaging, and also single-handedly pulls it down (oh the irony!) with his horrendously off-key singing! Even Himesh Reshammiya has moved to roping in Arijit Singh for Heeriye in Happy Hardy Heer, even though the song’s standard remains unbearably monotonous.
Singappenney – Bigil (A.R.Rahman) – Tamil: The other composer who could pause his singing ambition is Rahman himself. I thought he started with ‘Mogaray’ as the opening call-out (as in ‘Moonji Mogaraya Paaru’). Figured it was ‘Maadharey’, eventually. Rahman’s labored singing style seemed like a disadvantage to the otherwise nice-enough song, with a steady rhythm and a rousing melody, topped with Shashaa’s end part that works like a contrasting twist. But yes, Rahman or Yuvan’s singing is definitely better sounding that Kaappaan’s Hey Amigo where Lesle Lewis sings Tamil almost like he’s forced to under gunpoint.
Manasukidi Garalam & Dheveri – Guna 369 (Chaitan Bharadwaj) – Telugu: Vijay Yesudas and Shweta Mohan are brilliantly suited for Manasukidi Garalam. That ‘Nuvvante Leni’ phrase, in particular, despite the obvious digital edit and paste, is a beautiful touch. Dheveri was a surprise given how much it reminded me of Shravan’s music and made me rue over that composer’s sad luck. Anyway, Chaitan scores this one too very well, with a beautifully realized flute interlude and a charming melody overall that is wonderfully handled by Gowtham Bharadwaj and particularly Ramya Behara.
Njan Jackson Allada – Ambili (Vishnu Vijay) – Malayalam: Flautist Vishnu Vijay who made his composing debut in director Johnpaul George’s Guppy is back with the director’s next, Ambili. Even if the show-stealer in the teaser is actor Soubin Shahir, Vishnu’s lively and whimsical tune in Njan Jackson Allada, sung equally in the right feel by Anthony Daasan, is a close second.
Iniyen Arukil – Age 30 (Jinu Vijayan) – Malayalam/Tamil: Composer Jinu wins by default when he picks Reetigowlai raaga for his charming little song. But while that raaga makes the song so much more enjoyable, a special mention for the video’s director, Deepak (DJ) Jayendranath, who handles the short script almost like a movie. It is a fairytale romance no doubt, but the plot points like the hero finding the girl to be a Tamilian and how he musically handles it, complete with red-and-black attire and a gana/kuthu interlude by Jassie Gift, are thoroughly enjoyable. The video was almost like a tweet-version fo a full film; as a full film, this would have been boring, but as a tweet-sized version, it was good fun!
Mon Ke Bojhai – Oriplast Originals S01 E02: Composer Gaurav Chatterjee’s mix of Bangla folk and Qawwali comes alive delightfully in the exuberant vocals of Sona Mohapatra and Sahil Solanki. That Sona can produce a cracker of a song is already known, but the surprise here is Sahil who is so very good! He is so assured in his rendition, and the way he pivots from Qawali-style ‘Tujhpe jaan yeh luta de saari’ to Bangla folk style is super! I didn’t really like the episode 3, featuring Arko’s song sung by Shaan, but given this song and last week’s number, this series is really turning out to be a darn good alternative to Coke Studio!
