I began to see music in a different light with exposure to popular pop groups like REM, Duran Duran, Genesis, Police, Wham!, Beatles, Rolling Stones, Snap, Take That (the band Robie Williams belonged to), Charles & Eddi, Boyz 2 Men, Color Me Badd, The BeeGees and Inner Circle (has anyone ever heard of a band called Shakespeare’s Sisters?!). Alban, Snow, Phil Collins, Toni Braxton, Lenny Kravitz, Lionel Richie, Ozzy Osbourne, Marilyn Manson and Bryan Adams. Soft rock, hard rock, glam rock, punk rock, classic rock, death metal, trash metal, alternative rock – these were things that I found out after listening to ARR’s music. I also discovered artists like Michael Jackson, Madonna, Cher, George Michael, Elton John, Sting, Prince, Rod Stewart, Eric Clapton, Richard Marx, Dr. And in that process, I found out that there are more genres to music than I thought and Indian film music is just the tip of the iceberg. The point here is that as I listened to ARR’s music, my understanding of music improved a little though not by much! In the growing up years, I began to look forward to the release of an ARR album to find out what’s new this time around. After listening to the track, I realized that some of them sounded like Western Classical Music and two of the tracks had A Capella (extensive use of human vocals for instrumental notes). Thiruda Thiruda would be a fine example to further this point. In this quest, he tries to go where no other composers have gone before. The soundtrack became immensely popular and I began to think there was something more to music than Carnatic or what we used to call at that time ‘English music!’ This is because there is a deliberate attempt on ARR’s part to make each song unique.
It was at this time that Roja was released. Dakshinamurthy, Salil Chaudhary, Bombay Ravi, Shyam, Johnson and Raveendran. Having said that, in those days I was an avid listener of music with a growing affinity towards Devarajan, P. I would like to reiterate that my knowledge of music is zero apart from singing a couple of times in the church. These tracks and the other tracks that ARR came up with kind of influenced the way I thought about music. That track mixes the omnipresent Venkateshwara Suprabhatham with some amazing percussion and melodious singing to please the ears. Though not from the ARR-Mani Ratnam parnership, another delightful soundtrack that ARR had composed was May Maadham (1992) with Marghazhi Poove having everyone hooked. At each hearing, you are bound to discover something new in the composition. I must say that it is true to some extent, but more than that, as you listen carefully, you will see (see or hear?) that there is a lot of layering in his arrangement. Everyone says that AR Rahman’s music grows on you and you wouldn’t like any song at your first hearing. Those days, Puthu Vellaimazhai, Kaadhal Rojave, Chinna Chinna Aasai and Rukumani were on a loop.
Not that the situation is any different now! But boy I was hooked to the guy who made music for Roja. I heard the sound track of Roja sometime in 1992 when I knew absolutely nothing about music. I am talking about none other than the AR Rahman Mani Ratnam combination here. Has this got something to do with the latest ruling on marriages in the United States? Absolutely not! Nevertheless, this has been a marriage that stood the test of time and keeps surprising us with the energy, enthusiasm and of course, the creativity. Simple music yet more melodious and it has that cute little surprise element in it.Am I talking about a marriage here? Sort of. Such is the magic these songs have spun over us for the past 15 years. ARR is an amazing composer and he set a new trend in tamil film music.Įven today if I get a chance to meet Rahman I would request him to dust up his old synthesizer and roll his fingers over it. To sum it up this is one such amazing song that was in the Yanni-Petshop Boys mould.
Yanni and Rahman have mutual admiration for each other that Rahman used Yanni’s orchestra in one of his live shows.
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