Madhushree sings for 'Endhiran'

Madhushree, who sang the chartbuster "Vaaji Vaaji" in 'Sivaji, the Boss', has crooned a number for 'Endhiran, the Robot'. The singer, reportedly one of the favourite singers of AR Rahman, was very delighted to get another opportunity to sing in a Rajni starrer, directed by Shankar.
After the recording at A.M. Studios in Chennai, Madhusree posed for photographs with Rajni and Shankar. Our sources say that all the songs for the movie have been recorded and the film is progressing at a brisk pace.
'Endhiran', the costliest Indian film ever with a budget exceeding Rs 150 crore, is being produced by Sun Pictures. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan plays the female lead.

Courtesy: filmysouth.com

A. R. Rahman's REFRESHING 'Sakkarakatti' songs

Six songs feature in the 'Sakkarakatti' album and all of them have been composed in a refreshing manner by the highly talented 'Mozart of Madras' A. R. Rahman. Three songs in the form of 'Taxi', 'Maruthani' and 'I miss you da' have been composed in a new format not familiar to Indain music. Surely a treat for scores of Rahman fans.

The song 'Taxi' has been designed as a peppy westernized song with the voices of Benny, Blaze and Vion while 'Maruthani' features the voices of Madhushree and Rahman himself. Chinmayee has lent her voice for 'I Miss You Da' and has teamed up with Benny for the song 'Chinnama'.

Krish and Harish have sung the song 'Ale' which is expected to be youthful. Another song titled 'Naan Eppothu Penn Aaven' has been composed in a feminine format with the essence of youthful exuberance.

The audio launch for 'Sakkarakatti' is slated to happen today and the music CDs and cassettes will hit the market from tomorrow.

Courtesy: indiaglitz.com

A.R.Rahman adds more sweetness to the 'Sugar Cube'

There is no need to dig up the history and try to explain how the songs composed by A.R.Rahman in a lot of movies have went on to become youth anthems and how the expectations about a film increase and also add pages to its publicity when the news break out loose that the Mozart of Asia is composing the music for the songs in it.

The unit of the new film 'Sakkarakatti' can be assured of peppy, spicy, groovy and addictive music to do service to the ears of the audience as Rahman's compositions have done several times before being a big support factor to the success of the movie.

Getting A.R.Rahman to use his skills in a film is a very difficult task given his busy schedule and if the music maestro selects a movie then definitely he must have found something fascinating in the story of the film.

So the Job of building an aura around the potential of 'Sakkarakatti' a movie targeted at the youth has already been half done.

And when Rahman goes for something, he makes it the best.

A Singer Veena Bharatwaj was flown specially from London to record a song in this new film.

Other singers are Naresh Iyer, now a Rahman regular, Madhu sree, and Benny among others.

The audio tracks of a perfect blend of classical and hip hop music boasts of a song titled "I Miss U Da" which has been given sounds and tones that has never been heard before in Indian Films.

The director of the film himself admitted to have got hooked up with a youthful and inspiring ambiance in A.R.Rahman's studio when the songs were recorded.

The director of this youth oriented and colourful movie Prabhu who also happens to be the son of the famous producer Kalaipuli.S.Dhanu has taken a bold step in directing a movie just with the film making Knowledge that he has gained from his father and not by being an assistant to other directors.

The boldness to take the plunge just on their self belief shown by certain young directors in Kollywood has certainly triggered off a trend among the younger lot of aspiring directors to follow their dreams with oozing self confidence.

Director Prabhu follows the marks left back by the success story of another filmmaker who also happens to have "Prabhu" in his name.

The first time lucky director of 'Chennai 600028', Venkat Prabhu is already wrapping up his second project after hitting the Jack pot in his first attempt itself, that too without any prior experience to back up.

A.R.R's music comes as bonus in the true sense for any soon to be released movie.

Same in the case of this film too, but still it has a heavy luggage of making careers of two.

Other than a new director the film also marks the entry of Santhanu, son of the acclaimed actor/director Bhagyaraj into the film world as the leading man.

The audio C.D of the film comprising of 6 tracks will hit the music stores on June.

The countdown has started as all the scenes except the video of a song have been canned.

Wait and watch to see how the new Prabhu has tried to hit the bull's eye with his directorial debut.

Courtesy: indiaglitz.com

'Each song in Jodhaa Akbar has its own potential'

The last song to appear in Jodhaa Akbar, Inn Lamhon Ke Daaman Mein, is one of the most haunting songs composed by A R Rahman.

But like many of his fabled compositions, this one will also take time to make a lasting impact. The song is used mostly in the background, as Jodhaa and Akbar make love for the first time.

The number is sung by Sonu Nigam, and Madhushree who, in recent years, has emerged as one of Rahman's favourites.

The composer says the song challenged him considerably.

"It comes in the climax of the film," he says. "It was very important to have the song right. If it is too slow, it will bring the whole energy down. If it is too fast, it won't do justice to the situation. The end of the film shows Jodhaa finally loving Akbar for the first time since their wedding."

He had to play 'a kind of dynamic composition where it starts on a soothing note, and then goes to the big chorus,' he says.

"It has a full journey in it," he adds. "I think it is very good."

Many cannot understand how a big historical film like Jodhaa Akbar has only five songs. Old classics like Mughal-E-Azam and Pakeezah have quite a few songs in them.

"Numbers don't count," Rahman answers bluntly. "Roja, Dil Se, Bombay and Guru each had five songs. The real songs in that film were five; others were used in the background.

"Each song in Jodhaa Akbar has its own potential," he continues. "So we kept them simple. We did not want to overload things."

The music of Jodhaa Akbar is not confined to songs alone, he asserts.

"Once the film is released, they (UTV, the film's producer) may release the soundtrack, with the theme of the film and other compositions," he says.

"I take composing the background music for a film to be a very serious business," he continues. "There are a lot of people, who do just five songs and leave it for someone else to compose the background. You need 20 times the energy (of composing songs) to produce the background score. You need three to four months."

The time he took to compose the background score for Jodhaa Akbar, he adds, he could have used to compose songs for five to six films.

"It (the background score) is a commitment to the movie," he continues. "It is all about artistic honesty. It also helps you grow musically. In this film, I loved doing the background music because of the depth of the subject and interesting situations."


But on many occasions, when a filmmaker tells him the film's story, he knows in his heart, that he should not take up the film.

"When I am doing a song," he says, "the director has to live with the song and when I am doing a film's background music, I have to watch the film and have to live with the film all my life."

That is why he rejects many films, he adds.

Working for the third time with Gowariker reinforced Rahman's admiration for the filmmaker.

"Very few people recognise the kind of warmth in music, the pulse, the soul of the music," Rahman says. "He is one of them. Mani Ratnam and Subhash Ghai also are like him. Ashutosh has the talent for spotting fine music. There are so many ideas that he has to consider while working on a film. But to pick the right things and give them to the people, to present them in a very dignified way, is very important to him.

"There is no use in us in composing beautiful stuff and then getting it thrown away, without any respect to the music," Rahman continues. "It is very important for a director to sit and like something, and challenge the composer from time to time. Ashutosh does it."


Courtesy: Rediff.com

Untimely effort - A.R. Rahman fails to capture the nuance of the period on this album

After hearing and reading director Ashutosh Gowarikar say that the theme of the movie didn’t require impressive music tracks, one wasn’t expecting too much from this overdue album. And as it happens, low expectations mean the listeners will not be too disappointed by this UTV presentation produced by Gowarikar, with music by A.R. Rahman and lyrics by Javed Akhtar.

In Jodhaa Akbar, there are five songs in the genre of praise, devotional and romantic. But one cannot understand why the flavour of the period was not maintained for the music. In the 16th century, the style of music was raag-based classical music followed by a slowly evolving thumri-dadra culture. If the costumes, jewellery and sets of a film can ape a time period, why can’t the music? Are listeners not able to discern and appreciate these subtleties?

Simply put: Couldn’t the songs have been more Indian? This epic could have done without the predominant Western arrangement, Turkish and Japanese drums, keyboards, et cetera. How about some unadulterated Dhrupad? Or just the form of music that Mian Tansen sang for Akbar? Rahman’s sense of aesthetics is good, and his presentation and packaging styles are benchmarking Indian music standards, but this music does not fit a period film. Any song from this film could easily be used in any modern-era film situation. And the songs are too long.
The silver lining is the use of several new voices such as Bela Shende, Madhushree, Javed Ali, Mohammed Aslam and Bony Chakravarthy. Having sung for the big boss of Indian cinema music, these singers can surely hope for a bright future. Rahman himself has fabulously sung Khwaja mere Khwaja, a peppy hummable qawwali number. Sonu Nigam excels in the pleasant but ordinary creation, In lamhon ke daaman mein—never heard him sound as sexy as he does in this love song.
Bela Shende does a Lata Mangeshkar in Mann Mohanaa. Here is a sweet, thin, high-pitched voice, but the singing is superficial. It’s obvious that she is following Madam M’s style, but that trademark punch of the prima donna is missing. This is something all female singers of the day need to note and work on. But what is this overdramatic bhajan doing here in the first place? It not only fails to sustain, it just goes on and on! Azeem-O-Shaan Shahenshah and Jashn-E-Bahaaraa are easy on the ears and will be accepted by fans of the Chennai music-maker.
The slight use of classical taraana-type pieces and two miniscule sitar works are some efforts to bring in the flavour of the subject—a stark contrast to an otherwise Western-influenced Rahman submission.
But pick up the album, definitely for the fantastic photographs, designing and printing of the CD. UTV Music distributed by Sony BMG, Rs 160.

Courtesy: Livemint.com