Milliblog Weeklies, Week 181 – Apr.10, 2022

Milliblog Weeklies – India’s only multilingual, weekly new music playlist.
Week 181: On Spotify | On
11 songs this week! All the songs are available on both YouTube and Spotify.

Intezaar – Lucky Ali, Mikey McCleary (Hindi/Indipop): Oh wow – the return of Lucky Ali! And Mikey seems to be the perfect guy for bringing him back to the elusive singer back to mainstream! The tune is very Mikey but Lucky makes it his own with his inimitable singing!

Beast Mode – Beast (Anirudh) – Tamil: This is Anirudh magic all through! Right from that ‘Meaner, Leaner, Stronger’ hook… to that captivating musical bit that starts the song… to the catchy rhythm… to Anirudh’s punchy vocals, this is a hero-worship song that is oozing swag and style.

Kaalai Maalai – Paper Rocket (Dharan Kumar) – Tamil: A very beautiful melody from Dharan who keeps the lilting rhythm at a tasteful minimum to let the tune shine through. Sid Sriram’s vocals elevate the song considerably and this becomes even more obvious when in the anupallavi, the tune goes into that ‘NaaLai enbadhu nilavaaga’ pivot. Vivek’s lyrics are a significant part of the song’s charm too.

Pogadhey – Nadhi (Dhibu Ninan Thomas) – Tamil: After Nadhi’s very, very promising first two songs (Theera Nadhi and Kathari Poovasam), Dhibu hits it out of the park yet again – that’s 3 fantastic songs in a row! Singer Anila Rajeev is clearly in fantastic control of the enjoyable melody even as Dhibu helps her with a really captivating melody that literally flows so beautifully! Some bits of the melody took me back to Ilayaraja’s style and panache!

Lawyer Papa – Nenu Meeku Baaga Kavalsinavaadini (Manisharma) – Telugu: Before I come to the song, I’m honestly surprised by the frequency of films starring Kiran Abbavaram! I quite like the chap’s disarmingly simple appeal, but he had SR Kalyanamandapam in August 2021 (which he also wrote!). Then, he had Sebastian P.C. 524 in March 2022. Even before that film released, promos and songs for his next, Sammathame, had started. And now, the first single from Nenu Meeku Baaga Kavalsinavaadini! A lot of films, in a short span of time! Good for him, though.

The song is an interesting kuthu tune by Manisharma. It seems like it was crafted out of a minor variation in Rowdy Baby’s ‘Ra, namma beach pakkam potham… Oru dappankuthu vesthaam’ hook! But Manisharma, the veteran he is, builds something very catchy out of that, and Ram Miryala is superb in handling the raucous song.

The Panchakattu Song – Ante Sundaraniki (Vivek Sagar) – Telugu: Oh my God! This is Vivek Sagar at his best in recent times! The way he uses Aruna Sairam’s superb voice in a heady, zany tune is brilliant! The tune itself is a completely whimsical affair that gets rooted in Aruna’s brilliant singing, particularly in the anupallavi.

Manju Thullikal – Four (Bijibal) – Malayalam: A typically Bijibal-style melody that is low-key and so very unassuming. But in Najim Arshad’s always-delightful singing, the simple melody comes alive along with the small nuances Bijibal infuses into the tune. Like that ‘Hridayam Vaanil… Uyarnne’ high towards the end of the pallavi that I thought would have a more rounded closure but it just ends with 3 different pitches for ‘Uyarnne’!

Aakasham – Aromal Chekaver (Malayalam/Indipop): An unusual and catchy song where the techno sound fuses with a faux-classical sound, and the mix, curiously, is very good! Siva Prasad’s Nadaswaram has also been used very well in this mix.

Sing To The Skies : Swararaaga – The Immersive Experience, Vol. 2 (Sandeep Chowta, ft. Varijashree Venugopal, John Connearn, Jonathan Huber & Seb Read) – Indipop: I remember writing about 2 songs from Sandeep’s first volume of The Immersive Experience back in February 2021. And I completely missed the 2nd volume that released in May 2021! The pick of the album is the take on the Shankarabharanam raaga-based Tyagaraja kriti, Swararagasudha. The song is a new-age recreation of the kriti that starts with the original’s charanam and yet retains the soul of the original, thanks to Varijashree Venugopal’s fantastic singing!

Reunion 1 – The Immersive Experience, Vol. 3 (Sandeep Chowta, ft. Abhay Nayampally, Seb Read) – Indipop: So, how did I come across the volume 2 of The Immersive Experience? Because I stumbled on volume 3, and then wondered when I missed the 2nd volume 🙂 Surprisingly, the new album (3rd volume) has 9 songs, unlike the previous 2 albums that had only 4 songs each! But oddly, enough, just one worked for me as a striking enough song, even though the album is a good listen overall. Reunion 1 is the only song that features Abhay Nayampally’s carnatic classical guitar and that alone makes this song a great listen! The song’s other version (Reunion 2) has more of Diego Hedez’s trumpet with only a smattering of Abhay’s guitar, though.

Prarthona – Coke Studio Bangla, Season 1: I’m really not sure about the frequency of songs in Coke Studio Bangla! The first song was released on February 23rd and the second song drops on April 1? The song is lovely, though. Using the Bangla folk song, ‘Allah megh de’, led by Momotaz Begom, as the base (famously ripped off by Bappi Lahiri twice – once for Runa Laila’s album, Superuna, and then for the film Sharabi), the song fuses ‘Baba Maulana’ too eventually, and the result is one hugely lilting song.

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