Jack Anand commits the deadly debutant sin by lifting Bond’s Victory in the interlude of Pada pada, Thada thada (thanks: Sanjay Ramaswamy’s comment) a Harris Jeyaraj-styled racy track. Megamai’s mild hip-hop backgrounds and Kaadhal saalai’s lilting melody are promising, while Ayyo ayyo is muddled, ‘using’ a very well known classical piece in the interlude. Oh [...]

It’s terribly ironical actually – on one hand, Mithoon debut pop album, the awkwardly titled, Tuhi mere rab ki tarha hai, is mostly competent. But, on the other, it sees Mithoon pushing his luck way too far – with the same set of ambient tunes and backgrounds. It sounded interesting till his last soundtrack, but [...]

Adangaa Pidaari has Shankar Mahadevan toying with a frivolous, MCP’ish number and beyond the catchy backgrounds, MGR illeenga is largely flippant. Eppadiyo maattikitten takes Tamil hip-hop ahead and showcases Yuvan’s impressive cross-over skills, while Oru kal oru kannaadi is a competent ballad barring that annoying, often off-key vocals by the composer himself, while Adnan’s version [...]

Indian Ocean? Junoon? Euphoria? All rolled into one with a college band’ish rough edge! Beyond all the hype of being the band that won Radiocity’s Best Hindi Band hunt, the tracks that really worked for me include the reggae-tinged Jaana kahan, the ‘c’mon-that’s-Euphoria’ Pyaar ke rang, the very imaginative guitar in Patte saare and the [...]

Muthathu pakkathil is Vaadi en kappakezhange version 2.0 – with the same verve and loutish charm, while the choice of singers, Javed Ali and Bela Shende, along with the Raja’esque soft melody makes a big impression in Chinnansirisu. SP Charan is remarkably better than Yuvan’s off-key moaning in Kadaloram, a soulful song marked by its [...]

Venkata with Avinash Chebbi’s vocals is groovy with a catchy hook, while its racier English version is pretty good fun too. Nodutha is punctuated by completely silent portions that are very appropriately placed within the rhythmic and trendy tune – Naresh Iyer and Chaitra are in excellent form here. Koogi kuniyona is total masti – [...]

Wonderful beginning! Original Score: “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” Alexandre Desplat; “Defiance,” James Newton Howard; “Milk,” Danny Elfman; “Slumdog Millionaire,” A.R. Rahman; “WALL-E,” Thomas Newman. Original Song: “Down to Earth” from “WALL-E,” Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman; “Jai Ho” from “Slumdog Millionaire,” A.R. Rahman and Gulzar; “O Saya” from “Slumdog Millionaire,” A.R. Rahman and [...]

Even though I wouldn’t elevate Dev.D’s soundtrack with the halo’ed 300-word club of Delhi 6, I take back my comment that Dev.D got a 200 word review only because of its size. I’m completely addicted to it now – not that I had anything against it earlier. And, unlike my earlier fascination with only Emosional [...]

After almost 3+ years of expressing my opinion on a lot of music, I’ve decided to focus on the better ones (as much as possible) while expressing my displeasure about the useless (personal opinion again!) ones via Twitter. The ones that I do not seem to like will have a micro comment, composer’s name and [...]

Karthik/ Rahman and Raqeeb Aalam enthusiastically deliver Jiya se jiya – but the song itself is a bit of a letdown – too dense in the backgrounds as it progresses. In Kural, the Thirukkural verses that Blaze (in English) and that uncredited lady render don’t gel in the ambient set-up. Man chandre is perhaps the [...]