Milliblog Weeklies, Week 188 – June 19, 2022

Milliblog Weeklies – India’s only multilingual, weekly new music playlist.
Week 188: On Spotify | On
11 songs this week! All the songs are available on Spotify, while YouTube is missing one song – the one from Pakka Commercial (inside a jukebox).

Mudhala – Madhil Mel Kaadhal (Nivas K Prasanna) – Tamil: The song is titled ‘Mudhala’ and Nivas and lyricist Madhan Karky do something interesting here. The title doesn’t appear till the last 30 seconds of the song when it takes a completely unusual turn that belies what we heard till then! It starts beautifully with the soft melody by Kapil Kapilan (he is really good!) and then Darini Hariharan repeats that tune, with an anupallavi too in the middle by Kapil. And then Nivas drops that ending… wait for it! Madhan’s lines are, as always, brilliant – “Rendu veru niruvanagaL ondru serndhu iNaivadhu pol, undhan nenjum, endhan nenjum oppandham podutho” has to be the most capitalistic way to decipher falling in love 🙂

Saanjikkava – Kaari (D.Imman) – Tamil: A very, very Imman-style melody. The tune is affecting, but there are the background details that seem less organic and more programmed. But Imman has a way of throwing surprises, like that ‘muLLu putharoram pullil iru naagam’ twist that moves away from the core melody but comes back wonderfully.

Sundari Pennae – Berklee Indian Ensemble feat. Shreya Ghoshal (Tamil): This is a pleasant surprise! Oru Oorla Rendu Raja is one of Imman’s solid albums. To see a song from that 2014 soundtrack being picked up for a recreation is that surprise, considering this wasn’t that big a successful song even back then, though a brilliant composition. The Berklee Indian Ensemble’s starkly unique additions surface in the anupallavi that comes with a Jazz-infused backdrop.

Adhirindhi Mastaru Mee Posteru – Pakka Commercial (Jakes Bejoy) – Telugu: This song is what would materialize when Devi Sri Prasad decides to tone down his style while composing yet another of his famously catchy masala numbers! The rhythm is present, but it doesn’t have the loud edge usually famous in DSP’s music. The tune too is ripe for going full-on masala bouncy mode, but it holds back instead, focusing more on a consistently lilting backdrop than quick bursts. Clever work by Jakes.

Penne Penne – Ullasam (Shaan Rahman) – Malayalam: I thought the idea of using tribal people who live near Ooty/Coonoor (in the Nilgiris range) as background props had stopped with the mid-90s. But here we are, with this song from a 2022 film! Thankfully, Shaan doesn’t use tribal bells and instruments to hammer that idea musically too. His tune is upbeat and adequately modern, with a lilting middle section too! Shembakaraj and Shaan handle the singing, with all the higher notes registering perfectly.

Rithuragam & Hey Kanmani – Vaashi (Kailas) – Malayalam: The other two songs in Vaashi don’t quite rise up to the standards set by Yaathonnum Parayathe, but they do make for a very good listen nonetheless. Both the songs are considerably lighter in tone than the other song, and Kailas’s music includes phrases of levity in the form of captivating chorus pieces in both the songs. Despite singing a shorter portion of the songs, both Sruthy Sivadas and Greeshma Tharavath, respectively, are particularly good in them.

Aane Maadi Heluteeni – Guru Shishyaru (B.Ajaneesh Loknath) – Kannada: The strings in the background is by now Ajaneesh’s trademark! I first recall hearing them in the interludes of Ulidavaru Kandante’s superlative song ‘Gatiya Ilidu’. Here, they occur in tandem with Harshika Devanath’s closure of each paragraph. And that core melody is gorgeous – this is the kind of melody that D.Imman, in Tamil, usually peddles in but has become a bit too monotonous. But in Ajaneesh’s handling—particularly that ‘Aane Maadi Heluteeni Naanu NinnavaLu’ part—it still stands out wonderfully.

Ilzaam & Barsaat – Industry (Arjun Kanungo) – Indipop/Hindi: Arjun’s new album Industry is a mixed bag, at least for me. The 2 songs that worked for me are Ilzaam and Barsaat. Ilazaam, with its predictably classic Latino pop style, works wonders. The sound that Arjun mounts to land the Ilzaam hook is fantastic. Barsaat has an addictive rhythm that gets progressively more interesting even as the singing totally envelops the listener with the way it builds.

Ta Dhom 2.0 – Ta Dhom Project: The Album (Viveick Rajagopalan · MC Awaaz · MC Artslord · MC DEHAATI) – Indipop: The 2017 lead song from Viveick’s album gets a recreation, and this has a new set of singers (the original had Dharmesh Parmar aka MC TodFod who passed away in March this year). This time the mix is Hindi-Tamil-Bhojpuri, unlike last time which included Hindi and Malayalam. The sound remains the same, a deeply resonant melodic strain that seems to me like snatches of raaga Puriyadhanashri.

Here is the 2017 song, for context:

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