If there is any composer in India who has continuously defied stereotypes it is Vishal Bharadwaj. He made his debut with Maachis in the 90’s and it was a refreshing musical score at a time when Hindi film music was largely sounding like pop music. I loved the sound that Vishal created in Maachis in the songs Chhod Aaye Hum (a song that makes you imagine the mountains) and Chhappa Chhappa (great hilly folk tune) and his choice of singers too was spot-on—Hariharan, Suresh Wadkar, Lata Mangeshkar etc. Since then Vishal has proved that his promising debut was no flash-in-the-pan. Though he composes for only 2-3 movies in a year, you can be sure that most of the songs would be radically different. Be it the frenzied energy in Beedi or the lilting O Saathi Re (both from Omkara) or the boisterous Kash Laga (No Smoking) or the symphonic Aasmaan Chhathri (Blue Umbrella), Vishal has shown his mettle in diverse genres. I hope we get to listen to more wonderful scores from this unsung composer, who definitely deserves more chances than he gets now!
Category Archives: Music Composers
Vijay Antony
Vijay Antony is one of the newer composers in Tamil, who made his debut with Sukran (a horrible movie) about 3 years back. It was a forgettable debut in my opinion and when I heard the commercial songs of Sukran (director S.A. Chandrashekharan, who has no place for melody songs), I dismissed Vijay as another run-of-the mill composer. But the real talent of Vijay came to the fore in the songs of Dishyum. I realized that Vijay was a composer with a bright future. Though, all the songs of Dishyum were not good, Ninjankootil was a cracker of a tune with superb orchestration. What I like about Vijay Antony is that his sound is very melodious and different. He uses an assortment of guitars, pianos and flutes.From then, Vijay has given some great tunes, though, I feel he has to get more movies which exploit his talent to compose great melodies. I hope he gets more subject-oriented movies. Here are my favourite Vijay Antony songs:
- Ninjaankootil-Dishyum-a song in Raaga Brindavanasaaranga
- Azhagaa-By 2-this movie had great songs by VA
- Roja Poovin-By 2
- Naanthaana-Ninaithaale-a song in the rare Amruthavarshini raagam, wonderful song!
- Thaneer Pookalaey-Ninaithaale-amazing orchestration
- Thozhiya-Kadhalil Vizhundhen-so catchy and peppy yet melodious!
- Solladi-Kadhalil Vizhundhen-superb guitars and a great tune.
- Natta Nadu-A Aa E Ee-what a song in raagam Hamsadhwani
Talented Music Directors not getting their due
There have been a lot of music directors, who I feel have not got the chances they deserved. The first one who comes to my mind is Ismail Darbar who composed great music for Hindi movies like Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam and Devdas. There are not many movies to his name as he did not get many opportunities. His music for both the mentioned films were awesome. He treaded a path which many modern Hindi film composers did not-classical music. His classical numbers like Albela Sajanwa(HDDCS), Silsilsa yeh chahat ka, Bairi piya, Hamesha Tumko Chaha (all from Devdas)were wonderful.
The second composer is the extremely talented Sharath, who has composed for a few malayalam movies and one Tamil movie. His songs were technically brilliant and the orchestration was too good. Still, he has only a handful of movies and a couple of albums to his credit. His tamil song in June R, Mazhaiye Mazhaiye (an amazing rendition by Hariharan) still haunts me. Harish’s blog has a very thoughful post on Sharath.
From the Tamil music industry, Ramesh Vinayagam has not got the respect he deserves. He has composed great melodious numbers (some Hindustani classical ones too like Kasturi Manirame in Azhagiya Theeye). Some of his good songs apart from the former one were Vizhigalil Aruginil (Azhagiya Theeye), Enna idhu (Nala Damayanthi), Nenje Thullipo (University) and En Swasathil (Jery). All these are wonderful songs and Ramesh also has a nice music style (not Rahmanish; I don’t mean Rahman’s style is bad, its just that some composers sound just like him, I too love Rahman). Ramesh’s songs have an Indian sound apart from having good percussion and bass guitars.
In retrospect, what I felt especially in the case of Ismail and Ramesh is that they got lost because of the overemphasis on “dance-based songs.” Directors want popular and peppy numbers which don’t have much melody but only loud music. In Tamil, there is a craze for “gaana” songs, having 1 or 2 gaana songs is fine but almost all the songs fast. The solitary slow song is dull, boring sad number(where the hero cries for his mother or lover).
The trend is slowly changing today. Music directors like the legendary Ilaiyaraja, Rahman and Vidyasagar are putting their foot down saying they would want to compose more melody-based numbers. They have every right to say that because they should be the ultimate decision-makers as they are the creators of the music, though the situations are given by the directors. There are innumerable numbers of these 3 genius music directors which are very melodious and yet satisfy the situations.
My only wish and prayer is that we get to hear more melodious music than the fast-paced ones.