Tanishk Bagchi has been getting some well-deserved hate for his atrocious recreation of A.R.Rahman’s Masakali, from Delhi 6. He did something equally terrible with A.R.Rahman’s Humma Humma earlier. Also, he has been shooting his mouth off with regard to ‘credits’, when he himself has gotten away with some recreations with no credit whatsoever, or with […]

Remixes in Hindi film music rake up mega numbers online. They are also much derided and have people wondering which favorite of theirs will be remixed next, with fear. So do remixes have a point? Read the post on Filmcompanion.

One of my classmates from school had shared a song (audio file) with a note, “Central theatre interval music 30 yrs back” in the school alumni Whatsapp Group. This is the Central (and Kanakadhara) theater in Coimbatore where I grew up. It’s amazing how we make associations with music! It’s also fascinating how we struggled […]

I wrote about the South Indian melting pot, led by music, movies and playlists, for The Ken. Read the story here.

I speak 3 languages fluently – Tamil, English, and Hindi. I can understand bits of Kannada and Malayalam reasonably well, and understand Telugu even lesser. But, if you put me in an autorickshaw in Hyderabad, Bengaluru or Kochi, I can assure you that I can discuss (in English or another broken language) with the driver […]

I came across this fascinating article in The Baffler, on the role of Spotify in the future of the music industry. It led me to think about the function of music discovery, something I believe I aid in, to a small extent, via Milliblog. I remember my dad telling me about how he used to […]

Having completed writing music reviews for 12 years, I was almost facing an existential dilemma. Thanks largely to Jagga Jasoos. Here’s a film that’s a true-blue musical (with a very pointed cue to why it is one, in the script!). And the musical doesn’t release its soundtrack as a single entity even a week before […]

This is both disappointing and depressing. Listen to: ‘Kaagadada Doniyalli’ from Kirik Party (music: Ajaneesh Loknath) and, The River, by The Bombay Royale Now, it is easy to jump to the conclusion that the Kannada song is ‘copied’, but there’s more to the thought than what hits the ear (meets the eye doesn’t seem appropriate). […]

Hard to believe the man is 50 today! Just seems like yesterday when, in Salem, I forced a cassette shop owner to cut short his lunch break, call the supplier and sell me the cassette tape of Kadhalan that was released the day before. And reading in Dinamani Kadhir, Dinamani’s supplement, that Mani Ratnam had […]

UPDATE: January 4, 2017 – Chennai Times announces Darbuka Siva as the composer of Enai Noki Paayum Thota! Original post: In the heavily marketing-dominated world of cinema, I do not recall an instance when a filmmaker withheld credit for any department just to increase intrigue/interest. After all, every name worth marketing could be—and should be—used […]