Two decades and 4 years before, Yeah! the Flashback starts!, the Kollywood music industry was shaken to the core by a phenomenon known as AR Rahman. The moment "Chinna Chinna Aaasai" lit up the screens with the freshness of a morning dew to the electrifying "Tamizha Tamizha" which is now regarded as one of the top 10 best soundtracks in the world, AR Rahman firmly took the Tamil film music by the storm and sent everyone into delirious state of positive madness. Little did the whole world at large knew that here was a musical genius then who was to transcend not just the boundaries of the numerous Indian States but also globally with his sheer groundbreaking and dynamic brilliance that enabled him to pocket the most prestigious and coveted Oscar Awards - not just one but two! "Don't give us lecture on ARR. We know enough about him already. Why are you giving us this gyan on ARR now when you should be telling us how AYM is?". I can telepathically sense your screaming mind voice. I will definitely tell you exactly why I took some time to give a brief intro on ARR by the end of this review. With awards galore and 288 months down the line, ARR has once again proved in AYM that music is not only his heart and soul but everything in his life.
When "Thalli Pogathey" was released as a single number in Jan 2016, it created tremendous amount of excitement just like how "Chinna Chinna Aasai" made each and everyone to get all worked up and go over the top! Sid Sriram, who made his debut with ARR's "Adiye", literally teases and tantalizes you with his mellowed down voice for the first few minutes. You think he is going to hit his famous "Adiye" top pitch but he doesn't. ARR and Sid make you wait and wait. To put matters into perspective, it's like the fox and the grapes story! And then Sid does it. Simply magical as he goes to his high range and together with Aparna's vocables in the middle and ADK's rap, "Thallli Pogathey" was the "Hosanna" of AYM. It set the expectations sky high for AYM.
Then, "Rasaali" happened in early June as yet another single track. It is nothing short of a pure carnatic blast. You don't have to know carnatic music but unless you have an ear for carnatic music, "Rasaali" is like a dazzling and colourful rainbow to a blind person. Sathya Prakash sets the right tone for this palatially breezy and enchantingly mesmerizing melodious number. Just like the Nadaswaram bit in the fag end of "Omana Penne" which elevated the song to completely new heights, the violin cum percussion in "Rasaali" sends you in raptures that all you can say is "Aha! Pramadham!" by admiring the Maestro's carnatic touches. Shashaa Tripathi takes "Rasaali" into another orbit with her "Ninukori" bit and surely gives a run for Harini's "Nilakaigirathu" in the second half. By the end of it all, you will feel that your heart is extremely gladdened and your soul is brightly warmed with this richly immense and intense musical bliss.
So, two down and the date of release for AYM was set for June 17. As the D-Date arrived, my first reaction was to listen to the techno number "Showkalli". A teaser got released prior to the album's release capturing the mind-numbing and unbelievable fast rap portion in the song. I was like "what just happened here" by the end of the teaser. So, my natural inclination was to listen "Showkalli" first as I had played "Thalli Pogathey and Rasaali" in a non-stop and continuous loop for many a day and night. The teaser was like the start of a bike. The entire song was simply vroooooommminngggggggggggggggggggg and zippiiinnggggggggg at full throttle. It was complete bonkers! In a perfectly good way. Adithya was like the calm before the storm in this highly energetic and passionate song for bikes. But, the song belonged to the rappers, ADK and Sri. They went all bananas, mangoes, oranges and other fruits! in the final phases of the song and were totally unrestrained like a free horse running at lightning pace across the moors. ADK and Sri were simply blazing all guns with fiery gusto and frenetic outburst in their rap portions. ARR might have felt that he was not a part of this raving party. So, what did he do? He cheerfully demolished the entire song single-handedly with some terrific hard and heavy electronic beats that is sure to be whacking great in theatres. Just hoping that Gautam Vasudev Menon has done justice with the visuals to this feverish techno-explosive.
It came down to the last two. "Idhu Naal" was sparklingly lively and delightfully youthful especially with an out of the world chorus in the final few minutes of the song. To give a comparison with VTV, it was heads and shoulders above "Anbil Avan". Aditya does a Vijay Prakash's "Hosanna" here and Jonita Gandhi literally took the breath away with her smashing rendition on the lines of Shreya Goshal's "Munbe Vaa". Unfortunately, the ending steals the show from the talented singer which was divinely delicious like the nectar churned out of the ocean particularly from 3:00 till the song's completion. It was simply too good to be true!
Finally, the last one. Imagine you are sailing on a boat with your King/Queen on a full moon day and a gentle breath of relaxing breeze waves across your faces in that dear moment. "Avalum Nannum" is that kind of song, if you are a romantic type, in the typical Vijay Yesudas' execution though certain parts of the song somewhat reminded of "Chithirai Nila" from Kadal. Nevertheless,"Avalum Nanum" is the perfect soother amidst all the high octane and bubbly bubbly breezy songs from the Master Musician.
To put it in a nutshell, AYM is ,without any doubt, going to be the irresistible chartbuster of the year by busting all the charts - be it pie chart, bar chart, column chart or line chart! Overlooking my poor joke, AYM songs are just going to be on the lips of everyone much like VTV. Your ears are in for a killer overtime with the head phones to be in truly love with the ARR's magical AYM.
Is it better than VTV?
AYM manages to just crawl and inches a step head of the gorgeous VTV. The wonderful combo of ARR-GVM-STR does it again!!
PS:
It is there very much on my mind. I did not forget why I had a short brief on ARR prior to the actual review. Just like how "Thalli Pogathey" created a skyrocketing expectation around AYM and strongly laid the platform for the to-be-released scrumptious AYM's album when it was released way back in January, I wanted to have a strong foundation for the review. What better way to do it than to show my gratitude and salute to the ever humble, always soft-spoken and the eternal Mozart of Chennai.
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