Milliblog Weeklies – India’s only multilingual, weekly, new music playlist.
Week 252: YouTube | Spotify
Back after a 3-week break!! Weekend 1 (the weekend ending July 27-28) and weekend 3 (weekend ending August 3-4) were a musical washouts – very limited good-enough songs worth a playlist. So, I clubbed the limited songs that made the cut and have added them all to this playlist. Weekend 2 was a personal break owing to travel, which included a temple run and delightful food here:
So, having given an update on the delay, let me jump into this week’s mega-sized playlist of 23 songs!
Aaj Ki Raat, Khoobsurat – Stree 2 (Sachin-Jigar) – Hindi: A song that feels like a pulsating techno-ghazal! The choice of the singer—Madhubanti—aces the song! That ‘Jaan Ki Qurbani’ phrase came across as a spoiler, though 🙂 In Khoobsurat, the opening lines seemed familiar and predictable, though very well sung by Vishal Mishra. The composing duo reserve the best for the ‘Khoobsurati Par Teri’ hook where they convert what sounds like a Qawali line into a techno-qawwali! Good effort across both songs by subverting the conventional.
Shukra Guzaar – Kakuda (Gulraj Singh) – Hindi: A very sweet song by the very underrated Gulraj Singh! Sung by Gulraj himself, along with Aditi Paul. The enjoyable lines by Manoj Yadav made an impact too.
Poda Po – Jama (Ilayaraja) – Tamil: This is a stunning subversion by the veteran! The film is about street theater troupes in interior Tamil Nadu. But Ilayaraja scores a soaring rock song here and it works wonders based on how it makes you feel instead of trying to stick to the ethos of the surrounding context! The tune is vintage Raja, though, riffing on his own superhit song ‘Vaa Vaa Anbe’ from Eeramaana Rojave (Sivaranjani raaga?). Surprisingly impactful singing by both Rajaganapathy and Priya Jeberson, particularly the latter when she opens the song!
Spark – The Greatest of All Time (Yuvan Shankar Raja) – Tamil: Yuvan’s tune seems to be riffing on standard-issue Middle Eastern tune flows (think of ‘Engeyum Eppodhum’ from Ninaithaale Inikkum), but with his own punchy sound, he carves out something adequately enjoyable. Though I thought the ‘Hey Swing It, Break It’ hook was a cop-out and broke the tune’s flow instead of adding to it.
Poruthhiru Selva – Raghu Thatha (Sean Roldan) – Tamil: The second song this week that alludes towards ‘Engeyum Eppodhum’, and many other songs that seem to use the VakulabharaNam raaga base (including ‘Aarum Athu Aalam Illai’, from Muthal Vasantham, and Ullukulla Chakravarthy, from Paanakaran, among others). Sean, of course, gives it a zingy rock flavor and SP Charan’s singing nails it brilliantly, with Aalaap Raju breezing through the song with his bass guitar!
Otha Satti Soru – Vaazhai (Santhosh Narayanan) – Tamil: What a lovely melody! The impact of the song is very similar to the earlier song from the film, ‘Thenkizhakku’, but the feel is very different. Outstanding singing by Kapil Kapilan, mainly, and Aditya Ravindran. The ‘Otha Satti’ chorus/backdrop is a brilliant intervention into the main melody. Vivek’s lyrics too deserve a special mention.
Poovasanai – Sir (Siddhu Kumar) – Tamil: When I heard the first song from this film (Panangarukka), I thought it was listenable enough but not worth adding to Weeklies. But, with this new song, Siddhu Kumar has definitely earned a mention here! I thought I heard raaga Karaharapriya in the melody and that perhaps was the first thing that drew me into the melody. Sean Roldan sings this song, and that sentence, in itself, perhaps encompasses my consternation overall 🙂 But unlike Yuvan’s singing, Sean at least stays perfectly on the tune.
Kundanala Bomma, Tomato Buggala Pilla – Dhoom Dhaam (Gopi Sundar) – Telugu: Kundanala Bomma is a very, very Gopi Sundar melody, and this manifests more during the violin phrases. Good vocals by Sri Krishna. It’s the other song that stands out even more! The energetic table-loaded rhythm, for starters. The spritely tune, and Sri Krishna’s singing, next. And notice the end of the first interlude (in Veena, I presume) and see if you continue singing it as, ‘Vizhiyinil mozhiyinil nadaiyinil udaiyinil… Athisaya sugam tharum anangival pirappithu than’ 🙂
Jikki, Reppal Dappul – Mr Bachchan (Mickey J Meyer) – Telugu: Jikki is in the typical Mickey J Meyer zone. You hear it and you will guess Mickey as the composer. The faux-classical Carnatic phrases make the melody more interesting than it is. But where Mickey gets inventive is in Reppal Dappul! It sounds like a templatized kuthu song, but wait till you arrive at Mangli’s portions! Mickey builds the pace Anurag Kulkarni’s portion and amps it up to a peak as if he’s going to deliver the even more frenetic hook. Instead, he slows down the rhythm and lands with the ‘Reppal Dappul’ hook by Mangli!
Chuttamalle – Devara (Anirudh) – Telugu: Sure, it’s a very listable song. Shilpa Rao can seldom go wrong, as always. But the prominent question in my mind was why someone as popular and successful as Anirudh succumb to ‘recreate’ a song as popular and well-known as ‘Manike Mage Hithe’?
Venmeghangal – Super Zindagi (Sooraj S Kurup) – Malayalam: I really wish Sooraj composed more! Not only is the melody flamboyant alluring, but the sound he concocts is very good too. Gowry Lekshmi’s singing is apt. There are two more songs in this film, composed by Sooraj, but they don’t match this song’s quality, sadly. On an unrelated note, I see at least—almost—one new film starring Dhyan Sreenivasan every week, Vineet’s brother and veteran Sreenivasan’s other son. In terms of songs or trailer. Do they all release, do they run, I wonder!
Hey Gagana – Krishnam Pranaya Sakhi (Arjun Janya) – Kannada: A wonderful addition to the many ‘rain’ songs in Kannada cinema! Arjun plays around with the rhythm to keep to keep it intrusively interesting, almost perpendicular to the melody. The singers, Sonu Nigam and Chinmayi Sripada, are always, fantastic. On a related note, I was quite surprised that the next song that came out from this film after this one (Ninna Hegalu) had a different music composer—Saikarthic—and not Arjun Janya!
Samaya – Murphy (Arjun Janya) – Kannada: Is the song’s singer Rajath Hegde the brother of Sanjith Hegde? I wasn’t to confirm this, but in terms of the voice texture, Rajath sounds a lot like Sanjith, in a good way. Arjun’s melody is charming and with very limited music, it comes out wonderfully. It’s also very Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy’ish, I felt.
Nagunaguta Edebadita – Tenant (Girish Hothur) – Kannada: Girish’s tune does something interesting in this song! The start of the song (Nee Nanna Manadali Olidu) almost feels like the antara, while the actual antara (Aa AlegaLa Haage Ninna) feels like the mukhda! The song is punctuated by the violin phrases that amp up the song’s appeal. Very good singing by both Aishwarya Rangarajan and Aniruddha Sastry.
Mon Pakhi – Babli (Indraadip Dasgupta) – Bangla: Delightfully pleasant melody that is made better by Shreya Ghoshal’s lovely singing. There was a line, though, that took me to ‘Ki Inka Aashiq, Main Ban Gaya Hoon’ from Mithoon’s ‘Maula Mere’ (Anwar, 2007). But it’s a mere snatch, at best.
Kanavu Poandra Kaatchi, Oru Naa, Veliyae Po, Enna Mayakkam – Mudivili (Madhan Karky) – Tamil: In every possible way, Madhan Karky’s new Tamil pop music album, Mudivili, is a milestone, perhaps in all of India. It’s perhaps the first Indian music album (that too by someone who is better known as a lyricist, and here he composes music too) that is sung fully by voices generated by AI (Artificial Intelligence) and the music too is composed using synthesizers. In effect, there’s nothing conventionally “natural” about this album. But you would hardly be able to discern that the voices are not by real humans (unless you are told so). Even in visuals created by AI, there are clues that would have you guessing that they are ‘generated’ (though things are changing rapidly in this segment), but in ‘voice’, the inflexion point has already been crossed. Madhan’s singers, MWS (the male ‘singer’) and Ailaah (the ‘female’ singer) sound adequately real and even get their Tamil diction very right (unlike a lot of actual Tamil singers). The most interesting part for me was Madhan’s tunes. Though many of songs are of the Korean bubblegum pop variety, they sound pleasant and decent enough. And some of the tunes, like Veliyae Po and Our Naa are actually very good! I wouldn’t be surprised if Madhan gets opportunities to start composing music too (besides writing lyrics) in films soon. And I wouldn’t be surprised if he starts using AI generated voices to save on costs for producers! As I said earlier, this is a milestone, regardless of our/your consternation of where all this would lead to.
Sundarakalebara – Music Mojo Season 7 (Bineetha Ranjith Music Company) – Indipop/Malayalam/Tamil: It is to the band Agam’s credit that I was able to think of this heady, eclectic mix of a Kathakali Padam and the iconic Kaavadi Chindhu (most Tamilians would relate to the tune as ‘Nandavanathil Or Aandi) as something that bears Agam’s signature style. While Abhijith Sreenivasan’s lead guitars steams through the music giving it a vibe that goes far beyond the devotional context of the lyrics, into a heavy metal feel, the drums too make a beautiful fusion in the background. Bineetha’s lead vocals is scintillating while Jyothish Babu’s background vocals, particularly the soaring humming is equally powerful.
