Milliblog Weeklies – India’s only multilingual, weekly, new music playlist.
Week 256: YouTube | Spotify
Surprisingly, the songs of Brother are still not on Spotify (as also JioSaavn), though they are on Gaana and YouTube!
Kasturi – Amar Prem Ki Prem Kahani (Prasad Sashte) – Hindi: The kind of song that makes me sit up and wonder aloud who the composer is! While the second song from the film (Dheemi Dheemi) didn’t work for me, Kasturi is absolutely delightful! Prasad has a beautiful tune at his disposal and Arijit makes it so much more listenable! That ‘Ek jaisa haal tera mera’ is a fantastic hook!
Tum Jo Mile Ho – Vicky Vidya Ka Woh Wala Video (Sachin-Jigar) – Hindi: Sachin-Jigar channel their ‘Tere Vaaste’ (Zara Hatke Zara Bachke) charm and rehash the rhythm a bit to produce this easy-on-the-ear song. Vishal Mishra’s vocals do the rest admirably.
Amudha Amudha, Medhakuthu Kaalu Rendum, Badugas Night – Brother (Harris Jayaraj) – Tamil: A surprisingly good Harris Jayaraj album!! Harris eschews his sparsely sounding/tuned songs and goes for proper melodies and tunes that hark back to his early days. Amudha Amudha is the easiest on the ear, with its catchy tune. But while Karthik does his usually admirable job, the female singers (Ahana Balaji and Bhargavi Sridhar) sound a bit odd! But Madhushree aces it in Medhakuthu Kaalu Rendum, with the tune taking me back to 12B’s Jothi Neranjava, with a smattering of Enemy’s Tum Tum too! Badugas Night is a riot! It brings back the ‘tribal song’ genre to Tamil cinema (a placeholder for a ‘sensuous’ song back in the 80s and 90s). But Harris approaches the tune with a proper commercial format and it sounded like something from Ilayaraja’s Sakalakalaavallavan, partly because of a line ‘Nall vandi paaradi puLLa, Ukki pottu yeradi puLLa’ finding its way here too.
Yekki Yekki Paakuraan – Nandhan (Ghibran) – Tamil: The melody of the song reminded me of D.Imman’s music and if Shreya Ghoshal had sung it, I’d have been doubly sure 🙂 But Namitha Babu does a very good job with the vocals and imagination in the interludes go far beyond the Imman variety and showcases Ghibran’s sound that I miss dearly these days (compared to his early form).
Naan Yaar – Bloody Beggar (Jen Martin) – Tamil: The reference to Chandrabose in the opening shot sets the tone for a very, very Chandrabose’ish melody by Jen Martin. He gets the Chandrabose sound and tune beautifully right, and the singing by RK Hari Prasad Ramani is on the dot too, complete with competent yodelling in the interludes.
Saambava – Parari (Sean Roldan) – Tamil: While the tune of the song felt less interesting to me, what attracted me was the backgrounds where Sean Roldan seems to be having a lot more fun. Still, Meenakshi Elayaraja does a great job with the melody handed to her.
Bahusa Bahusa – Sundarakanda (Leon James) – Telugu: Leon James seems to have moved full-time to Telugu. His repertoire so far has been more misses than hits, but thankfully, Bahusa falls in the latter. He concocts a pleasant melody, accentuated by Sid Sriram’s winsome singing.
Neeye Neeye – Prathibha Tutorials (Kailas) – Malayalam: While the song is a nice enough listen given its soft melody, the song instantly took me to A R Rahman’s early days! In specific, Puthiya Mugham’s Netru Illaatha Maatram (listen to the way the first interlude ends and joins the anupallvi!), Gang Master’s Hello Hello (the overall background music), and Duet’s Anjali Anjali (the second interlude)! The song felt like a carefully constructed homage to Rahman!
Jahir Jhala Jagala – Yek Number (Ajay-Atul) – Marathi: The typical Ajay-Atul number! A gorgeous melody layered on top of a hugely interesting musical plank with a crisp rhythmic base! The singers ace it too – Ajay Gogavale, and in particular, Shreya Ghoshal.
Haari Re, Cake – Cake (Akshay & IP) – Hindi/Indipop: I wasn’t able to fathom what designers Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla are doing in this musical album (Google search drew a blank too) but seeing their names listed against ‘vocals’ seems like a mistake since there are obvious singers listed too. But it’s an interesting, listenable album. Madhubanti Bagchi’s Haari Re is my pick of the album, with its energetic mix of a folk’ish tune. Cake is the album’s most unusual song! It opens with Nakash Aziz’s very filmy portion (including ‘Dil mera ab tera isslave ho gaya’ level lyrics) before Nupoor Khedkar takes over with her faux-semi-classical part. That interplay makes this song wacky and funky!
Poti – Maalavika Sundar (Tamil/Indipop): If I had not known the composer’s name, my blind guess for this song’s music would have easily been Sean Roldan! But not to take anything away from Maalavika, her composition is excellent and the sound is proficient, besides her singing. She mentions 5 songs in this album titled ‘Yezhundhen Nimirndhen Nadandhen’, but only one seems to be out so far. I look forward to the other songs in the album based on this one’s quality!
