Milliblog Weeklies – India’s only multilingual, weekly new music playlist.
Week 237: YouTube | Spotify
9 songs this week. The song from Blue Star isn’t available on Spotify yet, surprisingly! The rest of the songs are available on both YouTube and Spotify playlists.
Chor – Justh (Hindi/Indipop): Oh wow, what a captivating song! The song’s poignant, philosophical lyrics and the highly involved way Justh sings reminded me of when Rabbi Shergill entered the music scene with Bulla Ki Jaana in 2004. As Justh amps up the music, the song takes on anthemic proportions when it ends with ‘Karde mujhe Aazaad’! And in a really curious move, Justh ends the song with, ‘Kal raat aaya mere ghar ek… shor’, instead of ‘chor’!
Akhiyaan Gulaab – Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya (Mitraz) – Hindi: Mitraz’s 2022 song gets a new lease of life in this film, and thankfully, this is not a remix by Tanishk Bagchi. The makers simply get Mitraz to redo the song as-is with no variation. It continues to work well, given the charming, low-key vibe.
Dil Ki Mez – Merry Christmas (Pritam) – Hindi: Shalmali Kholgade completely owns this mesmerizing number from Pritam. The song reminded me of Debojyoti Mishra’s Baarishon, from Happi, but that’s more about the genre overall than the actual melody. Both seem to owe something to George Michael’s body of work, though!
Railai ThaLLum Meghame – Blue Star (Govind Vasantha) – Tamil: Govind already has a spectacular winner in this soundtrack – Railin OligaL. But he produces another whopper here with Railai ThaLLum Meghame. While the song is a lovely listen with its compelling melody, neat singing (Arivu and Kareeshma), Arivu’s lyrics are a wonderful surprise!
Ae Pulla – Lal Salaam (A R Rahman) – Tamil: The song’s backgrounds hark back to Rahman of yore and that’s a wonderful surprise. The melody that follows isn’t up to the standards of early-day Rahman, though it does pass muster. I also wished Sid Sriram sang the song with his mouth open – at places he seems to be mumbling with his mouth half closed.
Katchi Sera – Sai Abhyankkar (Tamil/Indipop): Sai’s voice is excellent, and the tune he concocts for the song has a gently lilting and easy vibe… very easy to like and start singing along. That ‘Thanna Neram Nikkudhu’ hook rounds off the song’s appeal effortlessly. What I also found interesting is that Sai took 2 words from deep inside the song (the start of the 2nd line in the hook) as the title! ‘Katchi Sera’, in 2024, with impending Lok Sabha elections, makes it seem like a political song, though it’s far from that 🙂
Apple Crumble – Lover (Sean Roldan) – Tamil: Sean may have usually reserved such a tune for his non-film pop singles, but it’s great to see him use it for a movie. And the choice of Siddharth as a singer seems to have worked wonders! Siddharth sounds fresh and is a perfect vehicle for the breezy tune and handles most of the nuances really well!
Nijama – Honeymoon Express (Kalyani Malik) – Telugu: The prelude sounded very Ilayaraja’ish, and for some reason, took me to Singaravelan’s ‘Innum Ennai Enna Seiyya Pogairaai’. The song’s main melody is a nice contrast to the prelude, with an almost whispery singing by the severely underrated—both as a composer and as a singer—Kalyani Malik. The soft melody sits on top of the jaunty rhythms in an interesting manner! Sunitha Upadrasta’s singing is truly excellent, as is the way the composer chooses to end the song, lapsing into Carnatic music effortlessly.
Chiguru Chiguru – Vishnu Priya (Gopi Sundar) – Kannada: Good to hear Gopi’s music in Kannada again, after his debut in 2022 with Vijayanand. Najim Arshad’s singing is pleasant and works wonders for the soft melody. There were shades of Vidyasagar’s Dhool number ‘Aasai Aasai’ when the anupallavi started but Gopi surprised me with how ends the anupallavi and brings the pallavi back!