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“Music rights of `Singh is Kinng’ sold at Rs 13.5 cr” proclaims a DNA story yesterday. Amidst all the hoopla created by the Times Group since they’ve purchased the music rights for that humongous amount, there’s not one word on who the composer is! There are mentions of Akshay Kumar’s box office draw, Times Music having tasted success with ‘Welcome’ (!!?) and that they will monetize the music of this film in multiple ways. Folks…you forgot the most critical part of a soundtrack - the composer! This is a terrible trend and perhaps points to a multi-composer nonsense like Welcome.

Keywords: Vipul Shah, Akshay Kumar, Katrina Kaif, Neha Dhupia

The Roxette-style elements and Ranjith’s spritely vocals in Parugulu are engrossing. Saketh carries the soft and tuneful Nammavemo on his flimsy vocals even as the tune meanders into predictable territory around the Nijanga hook. Yelaga sounds like an interesting experiment - differently rhythmed tune and Kailash – Saindhavi combo. Chal chal and Podichey are tedious while the Sandeep Chowta’esque Hrudhayam’s dependably ambient sound is pretty neat. Barring two tracks, Parugu affirms Bhaskar’s vision as a director who knows his stuff and can extract good music from his composers – much like he did from Devi Sri Prasad, in his debut venture, Bommarillu.

Keywords: Allu Arjun, Sheila

Out of his three tracks, Anu Malik impresses in two - the groovy retro club-styled, Anchal Datta Bhatia solo, Dhoka, and Anchal’s lilting duet, Yeh pyaar hai, superbly supported by Shaan. The third, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan’s forlorn Koi chala is plain and disappointing. Mika’s hit Saawan mein gets a noisily pointless makeover by Anu, while Aryan’s guitar-heavy Kyun has a distinct Pritam sound and is punchy. Shibani’s loung’ish Raakh ho ja tu is pretty cool and her laidback vocals help immensely. Her second track, Dhoka dega is mundane. Three above-average tracks salvage the mixed bag soundtrack of Woodstock Villa!

Keywords: Sikandar Kher, Neha Uberoi, Anu Malik, Shibani Kashyap, Bappa Lahiri

Ulaga naayagan’s lyrical ego-massage and simple hooks, and the fairly melodious Mukundha are pretty neat, though seeped in the contrived Himesh style. Kallai mattum, perhaps meant for a Vaishnavite background, strangely sounds Islamic, while Oh oh sanam is catchy, only in a naïve way. Himesh’s Tamil in its remix is hilarious! Kaa karuppanukkum is noisy with a minimalistic tune akin to Mallika’s costumes and Khamoshi’s Remo track, Huiyya ho! Himesh treats Dasavathaaram exactly the way he treated any of his Hindi films, 2 years ago. It’s functional and occasionally decent, but definitely doesn’t fit the pompous hype around the film!

Keywords: Dasaavadhaaram, Dasavatharam, Kamal Hassan, Mallika Sherawat, Asin, Jayaprada, Kamal in 10 roles

Folks,
This theme change is not what I ideally wanted, but just got a mail from Google saying Milliblog has been removed from their index due to hidden spam text posted by a third party who may have gained access to my directory. I did find this spam text but I’m still wondering what I can do to prevent this in the future. I’m running WordPress 2.0 and need to port to the latest version of WordPress - but in order to do so, I need to back-up my database first - which I’m unable to do either via my host (Yahoo’s) back-up tool or directly via PHPmyadmin (its throwing up some error). I’m not a techie and can just about manage codes by reading the help pages. Any suggestions/ help appreciated.
Karthik

Endhan uyire’s melody starts off well but the haywire line two is a downer. The rest of the soundtrack is a coarse and bizarre collection - the Kundrathile Kumaranukku knock-off, Aalamaathu, sung in true Deva style; the unlikely techno Olaiakka; the naive, routine chest-thumping Singandaa; the completely dated and cringe-worthy Uthattoram with veteran Swarnalatha sounding really awkward…Pravin’s tunes get weirder with every track. The only solace is the fairly interesting Veecharuva kottayile, with a hip-hop styled arrangement and an attention-grabbing tune. The Pravin Mani - Sanjay Ram combination seems to be getting stronger – but with no respite to music lovers!

Keywords: Praveen Mani

Chahar Balish’s sound is refreshingly different and progressive. The very well-sung, techno-laden folk in Pekar (language?), the delightfully rhythmed and sung Rang laga, the soulful Gaddiye and Dil pareeshan, the filmi Katna nai and the western structure in Chal ren de are fascinating. What doesn’t work however is the resurgence of Sajjad’s own hit, ABBA knock-off (Lay all your love on me) Bolo bolo, and Nai thakda, evoking embarrassing memories of the singer’s Cinderella days! This is Sajjad Ali’s most accomplished work yet – his impressive and flexible vocals, and the lively experimentations in tune and backgrounds are in top form!

Keywords: Sajjad Ali, Waqar Ali, Chief Saab, Sohni Lag di

Aayiram vaanavil is straight out of a Tamil mega-serial’s title, and is that Dharmavathi I hear? En veettil has obviously wife-pleasing lyrics in Amarkalam’s Unnodu dhaan’ish tune. The saccharine-sweet family song, Kolattam and the wedding song, Mangalam work due to Janani and veteran SPB’s vocals. The rhyme-like tune of Unnai thaan with reggae’ish backgrounds sounds better in Anuradha Sriram’s vocals while Megam illamal’s guitar-driven sound just passes muster. The title song’s Hindustani version is the highlight of the soundtrack - tuned beautifully like a ghazal and sung with amazing grace by Bharadwaj and Suchitra Raman. Standard, appealing Bharadwaj fare, this!

Keywords: Chaya Singh, Parthiban, Vallamai Tharayo

Shagufta dil is dependent solely on that hook, with the outdated arrangements denoting the composer’s long hiatus. Aashiqui’s melodious turn is better but the predictable tune fails to sustain interest while Saath is painfully stale and reminds me of Dus Kahaniyaan’s title song! Laagee laagee is embarrassing, with arrangements and tune from the 1990s. Aayo re starts off pretty well with an un-credited (definitely not Sunidhi as listed!) lady’s voice doing a very neat unplugged version of Kesariya balam, but goes on with Sunidhi, to be another boringly musty song. Composer Anu Malik is completely out of form in Anamika.

Keywords: Dino Morea, Minissha Lamba, Koena Mitra, Aarti Chhabria

Guchchi guchchi is all techno with a tune that merely supports the catchy rhythms while Sude sude’s backgrounds evoke strong memories of Rahman’s cult friendship track, Mustafa. Sandeep’s stylized singing of the hush-hush tunes in Sude and the vastly similar Dhadak dhadak and Love me are entertaining. Chitti aayire is the most massy of all tracks, with crowd-pleasing rhythms. However, the supposed Rajnikant-anthem, Talaiva, in a mish-mash of languages and nonsense lyrics, is a shoddy, insulting parody of the superstar. Bujjigadu’s soundtrack has Sandeep working with a consistently ambient sound drawing from interesting world music’ish backgrounds for modestly native tunes.

Keywords: Prabhas, Prabas, Trisha, Rajinikant, Bhujjigadu, Made in Chennai