Milliblog Weeklies – India’s only multilingual, weekly new music playlist.
Week 233: YouTube | Spotify
13 songs this week, and considering Zee Music has somehow put off its tiff with Spotify (which I discovered to my surprise, last week when I found songs from Zee’s Marathi soundtrack of Naal 2 on Spotify), all the songs are available on both playlists!
Main Parwaana – Pippa (A R Rahman) – Hindi: From the music video, it’s quite evident that the director wanted a 1960s Shammi Kapoor-Mohd. Rafi-kind of song (though ‘Tu shamma, main hun mastana’ instead of ‘parwana’, was a surprise from Shellee). While Arijit does manage to sound completely different from any of his previous songs, he ends up sounding more like Piyush Mishra than Rafi. One of the female singers does exceedingly well in the 2nd antara; considering the order in which the 3 are listed—Pooja Tiwari, Nisa Shetty, and Rakshita Suresh—I’m assuming it is Pooja Tiwari. The song itself, while enjoyable overall, perhaps goes in too many directions to be cohesive. The rest of the album (4 more songs) didn’t work for me, mostly, and this includes the now-controversial recreation of Kazi Nazrul Islam’s iconic song that is being hugely criticized.
Bewakufiyan – Rainbow Rishta (Sanjay Das) – Hindi: There are 11 songs in the soundtrack of this Amazon Prime series, and only Sanjay Das’s songs stand out. Out of the 5 songs he produces, Bewakufiyan is my pick, with an easy groove and superb singing by Karshni Nair.
Chillanjirukkiye – Lubber Pandhu (Sean Roldan) – Tamil: A gorgeous song that screams Sean Roldan probably because of Pradeep’s lead vocals (Sean does the ‘Tu tu doo’ humming too in the background). But the sparse ghatam-style backdrop is a giveaway too, besides the profusion of violin for the Chillanjirukkiye hook. Shivangi too does her part wonderfully in the anupallavi. Also, when I saw the lyric video, I went, “Hey, that’s Velonie!” 🙂
Pattana O Pattu – Keedaa Cola (Vivek Sagar) – Telugu: This is one of those “Let us recreate the Ilayaraja sound” songs, and I assume there is perhaps some context or cur within the movie for that. Vivek sticks dangerously close to the Ilayaraja style of the mid-to-late 1980s and the sound should remind a lot of people of many songs from that period. There also seems to be a specific nod to Rudranetra’s Jey Speed Pilla, in particular. But even beyond the sound, what is more surprising is how the singers, Sri Krishna and Malavika, sound like, or were made to sound like SPB and S.Janaki! Sri Krishna, in particular, sounds so much like SPB that I had to check the credits twice, in disbelief!
Choolangalaake – Rani Chithira Marthanda (Manoj George) – Malayalam: I quite like Manoj George’s music and wanted to like his songs from this film too. Mariville and Aarum Kaana Kayal Kuyile came close but I didn’t like them enough to be on my playlist (or Weeklies). Thankfully, here comes Choolangalaake! It sounds very unfilmy, and more like an Indipop song, with a Bluegrass’y edge to it thanks to Sandeep Mohan on the banjos and mandolin. Akbar Khan’s vocals lend the tune a warm glow, particularly the parts where the words are extended into chorus’ish phrases.
Mouna Sundari – Marivillin Gopurangal (Vidyasagar) – Malayalam: Vidyasagar is back—yet again—and produces something that most people could effortlessly identify as a ‘Vidyasagar song’! With such lovely songs, I’m adequately zapped that he is not producing more music, more frequently these days.
Gimme Love, Moondance, Separately Together, Underworld – Dancing In The Dark (Dhruv Visvanath) – Indipop: Much like my liking for the voice of Rajan Batra, the lead singer of The Yellow Diary, have an irrational liking for Dhruv Visvanath’s music too! I find most of his songs to have truly wonderful melodies and his singing seals the deal for me. His new EP, Dancing In The Dark, is no different! These 4 are my picks from the highly listenable album.
Le Monde – Richard Carter (Talk To Me OST): I caught up with the A24 horror film, Talk To Me, recently. While the movie itself felt passable at best, despite the massive hype around it, the song used in a montage (where the kids use the ‘hand’ to perform the seance of sorts repeatedly) felt incredibly catchy! It’s the kind of sound/melody that you cannot get out of your mind after hearing just once! I figured out the name and producer of the song after watching the film – Le Monde, by Richard Carter. But it turns out that he has sampled French superstar Edith Piaf’s La Foule, to produce his version. And it doesn’t stop there either – Edith herself heard a Spanish/Argentine song ‘Que nadie sepa mi sufrir’ composed by Ángel Cabral in 1936, through another version of the song, sung by Alberto Castillo, in 1953, and created her French version, La Foule! Listen to all 3 songs – Le Monde, La Foule, and Alberto Castillo’s Que nadie sepa mi sufrir to trace how the captivating musical phrase travels through almost a century and 3 different interpretations! In Que nadie sepa mi sufrir, the phrase appears right in the middle (starting 1:13), but Edith Piaf took that as the opening note for her song, and the newer versions (there are others too, besides the one by Richard Carter) follow suit.
