The Corona pandemic completely changed so many things and almost every country experienced a lockdown. Just like a silver lining in the clouds, some wonderful things happened during this time and for all music lovers it was a new YouTube series called “Quarantine from Reality.” QFR was a very novel concept wherein a famous music presenter/organiser Subhasree Thanikachalam presented covers of rare Tamil songs. It started with the 50’s-60’s songs and gradually moved up to the 90’s songs of Raja.
The quality of the covers left me pleasantly surprised. I can confidently say that almost 80% of the songs sound as good as the original songs and they even sound better in many cases because of the superior recording quality. The QFR team has tried their best to recreate every interlude accurately with the same instrument by using a lot of live instruments, making them sound very authentic. The show has completed almost 180 episodes and they are presently targeting at least 200.
The daily ritual of every music fan is to wait for the QFR song of that day. They did not publish a song only on one day when the legendary SP Balasubramaniam passed away leaving all music fans in grief. Perhaps, they did it as a mark of respect for the maestro. I created a playlist called QFR and started adding all my favourite numbers there. The QFR series is so good that even people who do not know Tamil would enjoy it. Ms Subhasree has done a great job of assembling a great team of singers and musicians, they fit the song to a T in almost all the cases. I saw many singers from erstwhile reality shows who have grown big and are singing really well now. My favourite singers have been Krishnamurthy/Sharat Santhosh/Vishnudev/Deepshikha/Varsha/Vinaya etc. More importantly, they have recreated many classic songs very beautifully, making us fall in love with those numbers again. My playlist from QFR is shared below and I am sure you will have many more songs which you will like. Check out all the songs from their official YouTube channel.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSlphl8t1Xvy6ELI6u4AHQZCjhPbNDMh0