In the last couple of days, our blog got a nice spike in traffic. A quick peek at Google Analytics showed that most of the new hits were for a recent post regarding A.R. Rahman. Almost all the hits for this post came from a Yahoo Group and good ol’ Google helped me figure out that this group belonged to an A.R. Rahman fan club. One of the members of this group (Thanks Rivjot!) had apparently shared the link to this post with this group.

The post elicited the following exchange in the Yahoo group:

Thanks, Rivjot for this. I agree with him

To me, if we agree with the writer then it would mean AR hasn’t given music in 2010 which is not as good as his music before 2009 but that is not the case here. 2010 was really a good year with varied genres of music by AR.

My agreement with him is about ARR’s popularity being down up North in 2010, not his quality of work.  Whether ARR’s music in 2010 was as good, better or worse than previous years is a subjective take.  I think his quality has not suffered at all, just his popularity.

I don’t agree with the author’s assesmen of 2010…he clearly hasn’t heard VTV or Endhiran (Robot doesn’t count as its dubbed..both albums were popular and were of spellbinding quality..also how can people overlook 127 Hours??…if it were some other Indian composer they’d act like it was the moon landing!

My response:

1. I have heard both VTV and Endhiran songs (in fact, my son is a huge fan of Endhiran songs). VTV is very good but I didn’t enjoy Endhiran. I have also heard the soundtrack for 127 Hours and watched the movie as well. As I wrote in an earlier post, I liked the score for 127 Hours but I liked The Social Network more. I still think his work in 2010 as a whole does not match up to his earlier work.
2. A.R. Rahman is probably the only Indian composer with a truly Indian identity, if not global (as opposed to a state or industry or language identity). When it comes to him, I don’t think there is a North-South divide just because he happens to be from the South. If there is a North-South difference of opinion, it’s because of the inaccessibility of some of his music due to its language (I did make this point in the post that triggered this debate).
3. Of course, my views are subjective. So are the opinions of the fans above. Becoming a fan is not just about the quality of music (although that plays a big part), it is also about some very personal associations we make with songs and artists. Those personal associations are different for each one of us and make it very difficult for us to be rational and objective while discussing our favorite music or artist. And there is nothing wrong with subjectivity in this context. The world would be so boring if everyone liked the same music.