Rediscovering Raaja jems

"People claim they are Illayaraja fans, but they just listen to Pani Vizhum malar vanam and Illaya nila pozhigiradhu..." - said Miss.Paranoid to me.

And she is right. I was in danger of falling into the Punnagai Mannan/Sindhu Bhairavi rut. I saved a few olden goldies to my mp3 player yesterday, and smiled all the way to work.

Check these songs out -

En jeevan paaduthu - Karthik and Saranya starred in this really weird movie. Basically, Karthik has a love failure, kills himself and becomes a ghost. Saranya discovers his diary, reads his story and sympathizes with him, and becomes friends with him (the ghost). Finally, she realizes she is in love with him, and many soulful Illayaraja songs later, she kills herself and the two ghosts live happily ever after. I cannot believe this...i actually watched the full movie and even remember every scene! Like my mom says, if i had paid this kind of attention to my books, i could have gone to Harvard!

Anyway, some songs are really good.

- Ore murai un dharisanam by S.Janaki captures the longing of a girl in love

- Katti vechuko un anbu manasa is too good - it has the catchy thavil beats. I think Deva copied this for Vaali, and in turn, the beats inspired Rehman for the Mayilirage song from Anbe aaruyire

- Engiruntho azhaikum - There are two versions. The male version seemed a little boring, and the female version is actually sung by Lata Mangeshkar. She sings it well, however, her accent is not easy on the ears at all (especially when it comes to words like "azhaikum"

Some other songs -

- Neela kuyile from Soorasamharam - This song is almost as good as Naan yenbathu nee allavo from the same album. The only jarring notes are from the background music between the charanams, and it was composed that way for the song picturization (the hero is going through some trauma after battling the bad guys and the heroine is helping him out). Chitra is soulful, and Arulmozhi (a singer who never got his due) is as good as SPB

- Medhuva medhuva from Anna nagar mudhal theru Chitra and SPB elevate this song with their crystal clear voices, despite the fairly trite lyrics.

That brings me to another topic. Ilayaraja never had the advantage of Vairamuthu's superb lyrics the way Rehman did. That gives me enough material for the next blog post.