On A.R Rahman

 

With two new movies, Yuvvraaj and Ghajini, A.R Rahman’s music is again all over the place. And like every time, the music is going to be appreciated and detested with great intensity. It has been some time now, since some people have started groaning against A.R and his works. I didn’t care about all those uproars at the beginning.  But as you listen to more and more of those old classics from Rahman, you would slowly start to contemplate some kind of a ‘fall’ in his present day’s works. I ‘am not good at technically specifying ‘what went wrong’, but I sure can assure you that something is not the same.  It’s with great hope and delight that we are waiting for each new work from ARR. But faithfully, things are not paying like they used to be.

Speaking of Yuvvraaj, the main track ‘Tu meri dost hain’ appeared promising and signaled something greater in the original album. But unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. ‘Mastam Mastam’ and “Zindagi’ are the only two tracks that can be categorized as ‘likeable’. “Zandagi’ was almost near becoming a real good one, but failed because of its evident similarity with other works (“Lukka Chuppi”- RDB, anyone?). Then there was the fast number, ‘shano shano’ which simply..err… pisses you off! Usually you can’t easily hate a ‘Rahman work’, however bad it may be, but “shano shano” is an exception. “Manmohini morey” is another good composition, but I seriously doubt how many will really like that song.

A very interesting point about the album “Ghajini” is that the best track is the instrumental version of “Kaise Muhje”. But now if you listen to the original version of ‘kaise mujhe’ it’s a letdown (for someone who loved the instrumental). Can’t understand why that is happening.  I wouldn’t go as much to call the main track “Guzarish’ a bad one, but come on its A.R Rahman and you rightly deserves a lot better.
“Guzarish” is however, the kind of song that would get better with each listening (something which doesn’t applies to the ‘Yuvvraaj” tracks). Other songs in the album are just ‘okay’ kind, by the Rahman standards.

In Tamil, “Sakarkati” another recent work from ARR has this fast number “taxi taxi”, which will just make you go like, ‘come on Rahman didn’t do that…’ Maybe that song is not bad as such, but that’s something anyone out there could easily create. Neither Rahman’s magic nor his great experience is needed for such a sunken piece of music. It’s really what you call a down fall. “ADA, the way of life” is the only album in recent times, that could be called as a ‘complete’ work from Rahman.

At some point or another, all these songs would get really exciting and will have that Rahman seal in them, it could be a humming or a fading instrument in the background or anything, but unfortunately nothing is getting complete. Like with all those great guys, Rahman’s greatest competitor is he himself.  His works can never be rated on comparison with the works of another music director. That’s because even the worst work from Rahman is better than the best of many others. Still, when you feel a particular album from him is disappointing, it’s because you didn’t get the kind of delectation that you considers granted with every Rahman songs.

Maybe this so called ‘fall’ is just the invention of some unimaginative and conventional kind of perspectives, which can’t afford to understand the depth of change. Maybe it’s Rahman going in search of music with greater depth.

Whatever, I simply don’t enjoy the kind of intimacy that I used to have, with AR’s music these days, and that is really a bad thing!