Thanks Gopal! That was one of the best reviews I've read in a long time!
--- In [email protected], Gopal Srinivasan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > http://brangan.easyjournal.com/entry.aspx?eid=3167273 > > Music Review: Guru > > GURU > The New Sunday Express - November 26, 2006 > > AR Rahman's latest album for Mani Ratnam is never less than fascinating, and it showcases the > musician as much as his music. > > > Picture courtesy: ourbollywood.com > > IF someone were to make a movie about me listening to a new album by AR Rahman, the visuals > would be like those in the old cartoons where there's this man with an angel fluttering above > him on one side and the devil on the other, each alternately whispering good and bad. I'm > playing Barso re from Guru, and the angel says, "How beautifully Shreya Ghosal has sung this!" > And the devil says, "Yes, but it took you three listens just to get a handle on the bloody > melody lines. It's as if she's following the instructions of a baton being twirled by the > wind." And the angel says, "And why is that a problem? Not every tune has to be instantly > hummable." And the devil says, "But this chick here is singing about bullock-cart bells and > swings on mango trees, and that sort of rusticity demands a simple folk tune." And the angel > says, "Since when has fidelity to real life been important to art? You're going into the realm > of logic. Why don't you just listen to the music and see, for instance, how marvellously the > flute keeps flirting with the voice!" And the devil says, "But what's with the irritating burst > of drums that sounds like firecrackers going off in a tin can?" > > And on and on it goes. Sometime in the latter part of the nineties, Rahman's music achieved the > kind of burnished glow that only comes from the perfect balance of personal creativity and > public satisfaction. Dil Se, Taal, Earth... Overnight, the composer got rid of the awkward > pauses that would sometimes bring the mood of a song to a grinding halt (the suspended-in-time > sitar strains after the mukhda of Pyaar yeh in Rangeela, for instance). He ironed out his tune > transitions. He smoothened out his interludes the one thing he never appeared to give much > thought to earlier. (I still recall how startled I was when I first listened to the goosefleshy > Jiya jale, with that plaintive sarangi bracketing the opening line of the antara without > interrupting for a second the rhythm of the piece.) And where his earlier numbers were (mostly) > merely catchy and fun, his work at this point became gifts that would keep on giving. Every > time you heard a song, you'd discover something new, and yet, if you didn't want to dig into > them all that much, they were still well catchy and fun. > > And now, it appears Rahman has completed his transition to the other extreme, with albums that > are more personal, more idiosyncratic I thought I heard the low-throbbing hum of a lightsabre > towards the end of Barso re and, therefore, infinitely more fascinating. There's very little > in his music that's instantly catchy and fun anymore, because he's no longer just making > soundtracks; he's painting soundscapes. Over the years, our concept of the Film Album has been > a collection of songs of five to six different moods, and the skill of the composers was > revealed in the way they worked around these limitations. It's not that they never > experimented, but these experimentations seldom interfered with the surface of the song and > so the casual listener still came away with something to hum after one round of radio play. But > Rahman doesn't seem to care about any of this which is really the only way for a pure > musician to work. (Of course, you could argue that a music director for a movie can't afford to > be a "pure musician", and you would be right in a way.) The sound of Guru is the sound of a > musician trying to break free, and given the frequently unexpected detours in the compositions > here, you can almost imagine Mani Ratnam pulling Rahman aside and pleading, "Boss, give them... > something." > > That's probably why each song in Guru is uncharacteristically stuffed to the gills with > orchestration that sometimes suffocates Gulzar's words. That's probably why each song is filled > with chorusey bits dum tara dum tara, or na na re na re, or mayya mayya, or yammo yammo > that seem like sops to the audience; if they can't whistle the tricky melodies, there are at > least these other things to latch on to. And, inevitably, these decisions leave behind a wake > of mild dissatisfaction especially in the case of Tere bina. This is a breathtakingly > beautiful composition that describes life without a loved one, and this thought is elevated by > a typically Gulzarian metaphor: beswaadi ratiyaan, flavourless nights. Here's the hero, > envisioning (in Rahman's soaring vocals) the emptiness that would result in the absence of his > woman, and you want the jaggedness of the emotion to linger but the pat, persistent dum tara > refrain (which, as a line of music, is admittedly lovely) keeps dragging the song back into a > neutral comfort zone. I felt this even more when Chinmayee began to sing, her voice apparently > laden with the collective weight of the world's romantic longing. She's so magnificent, you > can't help asking of Rahman: Why settle for merely caressing the heart when there's potential > in the song to pierce the soul? > > But Ek lo ek muft gets it delightfully right from the tipsy swagger of Bappi Lahiri's > enunciation (just wait till you hear his Guroooo ki gudiya) to the spirited chorus to the perky > percussion that never once gets in the way of Gulzar's charming ode to pairs. More foot-tapping > arrives courtesy Baazi laga and Mayya, the former with infectious Latin flourishes, the latter > with a sultry Middle-Eastern feel. These along with the anthemic Jaage hain (the crushed, > leave-me-alone hopelessness of whose lyrics appear at odds with the increasingly rousing > arrangements; it made me imagine a violin solo being executed by a symphony orchestra) are > the soundscapes I was talking about. They are as-far-as-eye-can-see rather, ear-can-hear > expanses of layering and texture and ambience that you can't imagine from another composer. > Your inner-devil could whine that these songs are a tad overcooked, but the angel would be too > drunk on the sounds to care. That leaves us with Ae hairat-e-aashiqui, a number that wouldn't > have been out of place in a Muslim social with Rajendra Kumar and Sadhana. (Or, perhaps > Pakeezah, considering the line Pairon se zameen laga mat is but a once-removed variation on > Aapke paon dekhe...) The quasi-qawwali (you can hear the clapping in your head) is brilliantly > rendered by Hariharan, whose velvet voice combined with the velvet words when was the last > time you heard the e bridge hairat and aashiqui, astonishment and ardour? brings back a > long-ago era where passion meant poetry, poetry meant passion. That Rahman can transport > himself as comfortably into that world is all that's needed to silence both angel and devil. >
