Milliblog Weeklies, Week 266 – February 2, 2025

Milliblog Weeklies – India’s only multilingual, weekly, new music playlist.
Week 266: YouTube | Spotify

While YouTube has all 12 songs from this week, Spotify, surprisingly, is missing 3 songs – Raani Varaa from Rajabheema (which is part of a jukebox on YouTube, but since it is the last song in the jukebox, I managed to let that jukebox start from this song in the playlist), Edakochi Ishq from Daveed, and Summane from Vishnu Priya. Very surprised to see Spotify slacking on adding new tracks!!

Rang – Sky Force (Tanishk Bagchi) – Hindi: The best thing going for the song is Satinder Sartaj’s lead vocals (with Zahrah S Khan pitching in occasionally)! Tanishk’s usual musical shenanigans are intact and htey sound catchy enough, along with the captivating rhythm. He gets the hook very right, and together with Satinder’s singing, the song works pretty well. In another era from the past, this is the kind of song we expected—and got—from Shankar Ehsaan Loy!

Raasa Raasa – Kingston (GV Prakash Kumar) – Tamil: GV Prakash Kumar produces fantastic song that comes alive with a brilliantly realized rhythm that took me back to Ilayaraja’s Nayakan classic, ‘Nila Adhu Vaanathu Mela’ in terms of the feel and vibe! The punch in the rhythm is relentless and adds to the song’s charm considerably. It’s also unusual that he employs the ‘Raasa Raasa’ hook only in the beginning and the end, while the bridge back from anupallavi to pallavi simply merges into the second interlude! Both GV Prakash Kumar and Sublahshini handle the singing beautifully.

Yendi Vittu Pona – Dragon (Leon James) – Tamil: This is a gorgeous melody by Leon that deserved a better singer. Of course, STR brings it supposed saleability, but the tune has enough flourish that may have gained tremendously from a full-fledged singer instead of an actor-who-dabbles-in-singing-because-he-can. Musically, it works very well, with the strings evoking Rahman’s ‘VeNNilave VeNNilave’ at places.

Raani Varaa – Rajabheema (Simon K. King) – Tamil: Rajabheema was supposed to be actor Arav’s big solo launch in 2018 after his soaring popularity as the winner of the first season of Tamil Big Boss in 2017! I remember writing about the song ‘Ganesa’ back in 2019! And, after many years, with the entire film’s Hindi dubbed version available on YouTube, the Tamil version finally released last week, along with the full soundtrack! Simon has another good song here, in Raani Varaa. It’s a lovely song with a racy sound powered by the guitar and good singing by Vignesh.

Nee Irundhal – Shravan Sridhar (Tamil/Indipop): A very pleasant, well-sung melody from Shravan that obviously includes his signature violin phrases too. It sounds like a slightly grown-up, mature composition from someone like Sai Abhyankkar, who is now revelling in far simpler, catchier compositions.

Sithira Puthiri – Sai Abhyankkar (Tamil/Indipop): After the stratospheric success of his 2 songs from 2024, everything seems to have become bigger. The production seems much bigger and more expensive. The choice of leading lady too – from the relatively lesser known Samyuktha Viswanathan and Preity Mukhundhan (who, I recently came to know is Guitar Prasanna’s niece, FWIW), to an A-lister like Meenakshi Chaudhary. The number of locations seems to have multipled and so is the number of background group dancers. The song itself is immediately catchy, of course, though it seems more like a standard Hiphop Tamizha song and less like Sai’s. The naming convention remains the same, if you ignore the chorus revealing it rght at the beginning – what Sai sings starts with ‘Unna pol’ and he lands the ‘Sithira Puthiri’ phrase only at the end of what feels like a pallavi. And if you look beyond the catchy ‘Illa illa’ hook, there are a lot of musical ideas that work in isolation too, and that says a lot about how this young man is brimming with ideas and sounds.

Bachelors Anthem – Mazaka (Leon James) – Telugu: Very rhythmic song with the usual elements associated with such songs, but composer Leon James adds small flourishes that make it more interesting than what I expected. For instance, the chorus phrase after the ‘Bachlorse’ (yea, that’s how they write it in the lyric video!). The vocals by Dhanunjay Seepana stands out too.

Edakochi Ishq – Daveed (Justin Varghese) – Malayalam: Justin does something similar to what Vishnu Vijay did in Sulaikha Manzil – concoct a pulsating techno song out of what essentially sounds like Mappila Paattu! Things get foot-tapping within the first 30 seconds in Edakochi Ishq and it remains steadily captivating till the end, thanks also to Shikha Prabhakaran’s singing.

Maname Aalolam – Get Set Baby (Sam CS) – Malayalam: This is one of those songs where the Pallavi barely worked for me, but the anupallavi is so much better that I’m willing to overlook the former! That it has excellent singing by both Kapil Kapilan and Shakthisree Gopalan really helps too.

Karivala – Machante Maalakha (Ouseppachan) – Malayalam: A nice throwback to an older period of music at least as far as the melody goes, along with certain background sounds. Ouseppachan carefully balances the mix, while also incorporating more modern sounds, including a peekaboo orchestral phrase to great effect! You can’t go wrong with Vineeth Sreenivasan’s singing anyway, and Akhila Anand joins him in handling the tune very well.

Heart Attack – Painkili (Justin Varghese) – Malayalam: Along with the corny lyrics, this is a really funny song even if you don’t see the video 🙂 Fejo’s singing ensures that and so does the zingy 80s synth style music by Justin, along with a punchy ‘Ooh la la la’ hook.

Summane Summane – Vishnu Priya (Gopi Sundar) – Kannada: A waltz’y melody from Gopi that he handles in his usual, confident style and includes his trademark strings that I can identify even before it arrives, by now. The singing, particularly by the film’s heroine, Priya P Varrier (along with Akbar Khan) is surprisingly good!

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