Milliblog Weeklies – India’s only multilingual, weekly, new music playlist.
Week 296: YouTube | Spotify
Title song – Ek Din (Ram Sampath) – Hindi: It’s so good to see Ram Sampath composing for a film again, after what feels like eons. It also sounds very unlike Ram Sampath’s body of work and is Arijit’s show all the way! It’s a beautifull ballad, however, with a tinge of Latino music, and terrific guitaring by Shomu Seal and Shon Pinto. And lovely verse by Irshad Kamil.
Ae Ri Sakhi – Subedaar (Akshay & IP) – Hindi: Former Faridkot members, Akshay Raheja and IP Singh, offer the only interesting song from Subedaar’s soundtrack! No doubt they reuse Amir Khusrau’s traditional sufi ‘Aeri Sakhi More Piya Ghar Aaye’ as the base, they do a terrific job with the recreation, with excellent singing by both IP Singh and Shreya Ghoshal, and the extensions (in terms of antara).
Unna Enni Unna Enni, Kuthuvilakkoliye, Mottu Vitta – Anthony (Ilayaraja) – Tamil: Unna eNNi is vintage Ilayaraja from a different time period! I was transported to the 1990s with the simple, earthy first interlude started playing. The tune is sparse and wonderfully melodic, straight out of Raja’s earlier repertoire, with an undercurrent of the harmonium’ish sound. Kuthuvilakkoliye is dead ringer for Raja’s iconic, ‘ThooLiyile Aadivandha’ from Chinna Thambi! In fact, after the pallavi, the anupallavi drops any pretence and heads directly to the older song’s template. A nostalgic whiff! Mottu Vitta took me to multiple Raja songs, including UzhappaaLi’s ‘Muthirai Eppodhu’, Bharathan’s ‘Punnagayil Minsaram’, and Mouna Raagam’s ‘Pani Vizhum Iravu’ though it is intentionally paced and orchestrated differently. To hear vintage Raja, that too in a Sri Lankan Tamil film’s soundtrack was not in my plan for 2026!
Maatikitaan Minorkunju – Thaai Kizhavi (Nivas K Prasanna) – Tamil: A rollicking, funky 80s pop style song from Nivas that, to me, seemed to alluding to Shankar-Ganesh’s Ranga (1982) number, ‘Pattukottai AmmalLu’. Sublahshini is the star of the song, breezing through the stylish rendition like only she can.
Pogaadhe – Oh Butterfly (Vaisakh Somanath) – Tamil: Oh wow, I least expected this! A flamboyant, expansive and beautifully conceived blues number in Tamil. From Sean Roldan, I can understand, but this is from Vaisakh Somanath and I had to look up who he is (not to be confused with singer Vaisagh). While Kapil Kapilan is stupendous with the singing, Vaisakh does some great scatting in the backdrop too!
Uyire Uyire – Mental Manadhil (GV Prakash Kumar) – Tamil: While I am a bit surprised that Selva didn’t get Yuvan to compose music since his last 3 films did have Yuvan’s music. But GV Prakash has been a reasonably frequent collaborator with Selva and here, the composer does a very good job with the deep melancholy in the melody, accentuated by Kapil Kapilan. But strangely, I was reminded of Anirudh’s ‘Enna Solla’ from Thangamagan when the interlude starts bang in the middle of the song!
Aasa KalavaaNiye – Vadam (D.Imman) – Tamil: A rocking Imman number after quite some time (if I overlook his fairly good music in the Kannada film, Elumale, and ‘Othukkiriya’ from Blackmail last year). This is also perfectly in the Imman zone – he takes a deeply lush melody and layers it in unusually lively and rhythm orhcestration and the result works wonders. And then there is the Shanmugapriya raaga based first interlude that works even better!
Anaga Anaga America – VISA – Vintara Saradaga (Vijai Bulganin) – Telugu: Breezy melody with the right amount of levity in the catchy hook. Plus, Sanjith Hegde. Vijai has an effortless winner here.
Chaatu Chaatu – Purushaha (Shravan Bharadwaj) – Telugu: Good to see Shravan Bharadwaj picking up steam, again! This one has Chinmayi doing a stellar job with the melody. The flow of the tune feels almost hymnal, with the cadence beign really interesting and the strings offering superb backdrop. Shravan even interjects in an almost Rahman-style humming in the first interlude.
The First Breeze – Emo Emo Idi (Hesham Abdul Wahab) – Telugu: I think I am sensing the musical signatures of Mickey J Meyer and Hesham Abdul Wahab merging 🙂 When I first heard this (half) song, I was sure it was by Mickey. When I noticed Hesham’s name as composer, I was a bit flummoxed! It’s a gorgeous, sweeping melody, no doubt, and made better by Karthik’s song… but it’s also a bit of everything both composers have thrown at us over the years!
Aaya Sher – The Paradise (Anirudh) – Telugu: Just when I thought Anirudh was getting repetitive, he dropped a banger like Monica last year. This year, it is Aaya Sher. With a grand, anthemic sound and high-pitched singing by Addula Jangireddy and Arjun Chandy, the song just roars!
Rubaroo – Dacoit (Bheems Ceciroleo) – Telugu: I didn’t expect Bheems to headline a film like this… a pan-Indian, multi-lingual release at that. But the composer is mighty impressve both with the composition and his singing here! It’s an easily likeable melody with a captivating pan-Indian hook! And Chinmayi’s singing is an icing in the cake! This is also the third Chinmayi song in this Weeklies!
Madhuram – Sathi Leelavathi (Mickey J Meyer) – Telugu: I wrote about Karthik singing for Hesham that sounded also like Mickey’s song… above… and here’s Karthik singing for Mickey, but there’s no Hesham undertones here! It’s very Mickey and easy on the ear, though I thought I heard Karthik struggle a bit, particularly in the ‘Okko kshaNam O vintha’ part, which is quite unusual!
Kaanaathe – Spa (Ishaan Chhabra) – Malayalam: I was less interested in Ishaan’s obvious-retro in the film’s first single (Hridayavathi), but in Kaanaathe, the composer has a genuinely interesting idea. What starts off a semi-classical (Hindustani music as used in Malayalam films) melody gets spiked with what felt like British Underground sounds in the background and the result is quite eclectic! Shreekumar Vakkiyil sings it in all seriousness across both parts!
Yahin Guzaar Doon – Amaal Mallik (Hindi/Indipop): The soft and likeable melody reminded me of some Anu Malik song from the distant past, most probably featuring Alka Yagnik, though I couldn’t pinpoint which one. Both Amaal Mallik and Shreya Ghoshal do a great job with the singing, expectedly.
Kaundamani – Maizu & Richard (Tamil/Indipop): The song, while being perfectly catchy and racy, is utterly nuts when it comes to lyrics! ‘Vaaila Konjam Mixture, Vechaan Paaru Sixer’… recalling pop culture references from movies 🙂 And even though I thought the title refrain was about Goundamani, it could also be a fangled way of saying ‘Count the money’ 🙂
Baraati Drop – Parvatish Pradeep (Hindi/Malayalam/Indipop): This is the most unusual song I have heard in recent times! It starts off in Hindi, then moves to Malayalam, and then uses an appropriation of what sounds like Shankar Jaikishen’s ‘Hawa Mein Udta Jaye’ from Barsaat (1949) for a prominently repetitive musical phrase! But somehow, it all gels perfectly with each other, like most things from Kerala.
Nonsense – Jay Stellar, Ilayaraaja (Malayalam/Indipop): Hahahahahahahaha! This has to be the most insane sampling of ‘KiLiye KiLiye’ that has taken a second life after being used in Lokah recently. Jay doesn’t use the singing part alone, but also background sounds from the original, including snatches of the rhythm and it blends beautifully with the frenetic rap! And you have got to see the music video featuring Angry Birds… totally trippy 🙂
Jeepan Waleya – Raj Ranjodh, ft. Ammy Virk (Punjabi/Indipop): When the entirety of Punjabi pop music seems to be hip-hop oriented, it is great to hear lilting Punjabi sound, but with the perfect balance of modern sounds.
