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A.R. Rahman – The Spirit Of Music – Book Review

Conversations, Not Biography

“The Spirit of Music” sets the readers’ expectation right on the cover by declaring “Conversations with Nasreen Munni Kabir”. Unfortunately, a lot of people have been referring to it as ARR’s biography. It is not. It is just a very long interview. It makes for a light and entertaining read but it is constrained by two things – a) ARR’s ability to communicate with words (not nearly as good as his ability to communicate with music), b) His willingness to share information.

Nevertheless, the book is a great read because Ms. Kabir does manage to get ARR to open up like never before. There are some very personal insights that could have come only directly from ARR. Examples:

When ARR hits a composer’s block, he writes tunes to Bulleh Shah’s and Amir Khusrau’s poetry. Guru’s “Ae Hairathe Ashiqui” was composed on Amir Khusrau’s “Ae sharbat-e ashiqui”
He deals with pressure at work by heading out of Chennai to visit a Sufi dargah near Mahabalipuram

ARR’s Struggles

The one thing that struck me the most in the book is the description of the years of struggle ARR went through. His rise after “Roja” may have been meteoric but here is what his career looked like before it:

1978 – 1979 – Started working as a roadie when he was 11 years.
1980 – Played keyboards on Doordarshan program, Wonder Balloon
1981 – Played in school band
1985 – 1986 – Played in band, Magic. They had two gigs. To quote ARR – “And that was it – finito.”
1987 – Composed Album called “Disco Disco” for Malaysia Vasudevan
1988 – Played in band, Roots. Gave one performance.
1989 – Setup Panchathan Studio, a recording studio, in the backyard of his house. His mother had to sell her jewellery to finance the studio.
1979 – 1989 – Sessions musician. Played keyboard for Illayaraja, Raj-Koti, Vijay Anand
1990 – Released English-language album called “Set Me Free” with Malgudi Shubha
1989 – 1991 – Composed ad jingles.
1990 – 1991 – Played in band, Nemesis Avenue. Played one gig.
1992 – Played keyboard on Zakir Hussain and Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan’s album “Colours”. Credited as Dileep.

Sure ARR has loads of talent but even he had to work his ass off (and meet the 10,000-hour rule somewhere along the way) to achieve success.

Nice Guy

ARR has endeared himself to his fans not just because of his music but also because he comes across as a nice guy – humble, honest and spiritual. This comes across several times throughout the book. My favorites:

The first page of the book has this written in Tamil script – “Ella pukazhum iraivanukke” meaning “All praises to God”. He used this phrase while accepting the Oscar Awards for Slumdog Millionnaire
This Q&A

NMK: What do people say about your voice?

ARR: What do people say about my voice? It sounds like me of course. [laughs] I suppose they find character in the voice.

Collector’s Item

The book also happens to pretty cool collector’s item with the score sheet for “The Bombay Theme” and a CD of Rahman compositions that you will not find anywhere else.

Verdict

A good read for any music lover and a must-buy for ARR fans.

High Fidelity – A Movie/Book Review

You are probably not a music geek if you haven’t seen (the movie) or read (the book) High Fidelity. You are definitely not a music geek if you have seen or read High Fidelity and not enjoyed it.

High Fidelity is the story of a single, insecure and rather pathetic man in his mid-30s who finds true love after many failed attempts, loses it and eventually regains it. The music connection? He owns a record store, has a massive record collection, makes all kinds of song lists (The Top 5 Death Songs) and spends hours making compilation tapes. He has two equally geeky employees (one of them brilliantly played by Jack Black in the movie). The three of them are music snobs and look down on anyone who does not have good taste in music. In fact, they drive out potential customers because they have bad taste in music:

Barry’s Customer: Hi, do you have the song “I Just Called To Say I Love You?” It’s for my daughter’s birthday.

Barry: Yea we have it.

Barry’s Customer: Great, Great, can I have it?

Barry: No, no, you can’t.

Barry’s Customer: Why not?

Barry: Well, it’s sentimental tacky crap. Do we look like the kind of store that sells I Just Called to Say I Love You? Go to the mall.

Pick up the movie/book if you are looking for something funny, relaxing and entertaining.

People – Please Get Off A.R. Rahman’s Back

For some reason, a Facebook status update from me about 127 Hours elicited some negative comments against A.R. Rahman. This is not the first time I have heard such comments. I am intrigued by generalizations that A.R. Rahman is overrated. Why would people say something like that despite the brilliant work he has produced over almost two decades? What else does the guy have to do to prove his greatness? Here are some factors that may be leading people to make these assertions:

Rahman is competing with himself. He is being judged against his own extremely high standards. Is it fair to expect him to keep churning out masterpieces like Roja, Rangeela or Rang De Basanti all the time?
Recency effect. 2009 was not his most prolific year (probably because of the ruckus following Slumdog Millionaire) and 2010 was not his best year. My sense is that people are assessing a career spanning 20 years based on output from 2 years.
We are always catching up with Rahman. It is not unusual for people to say that they start liking Rahman songs after they have heard it a few times. In my opinion, it’s because he experiments and creates new sounds that we are not used to. His music forces us to open up our minds and broaden the scope of what we have traditionally defined as music. Remember – entire generations of Indians ignored Kishore Kumar for two decades because he sounded so different. His found broad acceptance only with Aradhana (1969) more than 20 years after his first song.
Not all his music is accessible to everybody. He has created gems for Tamil movies that are not accessible to non-Tamil music lovers (Pudhiya Mugam, Rhythm, etc) and vice versa (Rangeela, Swades, Rang De Basanti, etc.). How can people assess his work in its entirety when they haven’t listened to everything he has composed?

My take:

Rahman is not overrated. However, some of his lesser work (like Jai Ho) does tend to ride on his fame.
Rahman is an epoch-making composer. No music director has had the kind of broad impact that he has over the last two decades. He starts trends and continuously pushes musical boundaries. Many, many years from now, people will talk not just about his compositions, but about his positive influence on the Indian music scene as a whole. We are lucky to be living in Rahman’s era.
Yes, he is not perfect. A couple of minor grouses, I myself have – a) He uses his voice far more than he needs to or has in the past. b) Has he been playing a tad safe of late? He is no longer introducing as many new voices as he has in the past.

Some of this anti-Rahman buzz reminds me of what Sachin Tendulkar went through a few years ago, when many were gunning for his head. I am comforted by this parallel because I know that Rahman will do exactly what Sachin has done since then – continue to build upon a magnificent body of work that will seal his place as an all-time great, work that will win over all doubters – for good.

Bollywood Melodies – Book Review

Passion and enthusiasm are uplifting and contagious traits. And it is the warmth of these qualities that you bask in as you read Bollywood Melodies by Ganesh Anantharaman.

In the introduction to the book, the author confesses that he set out to write a book about the Bollywood music he truly loved – the music of the 1950s and 1960s – and had to be convinced by his editors to expand the scope to cover a much broader timeline form 1935 to 2005. As you read the book, the author’s bias becomes obvious and strangely, it is this bias that makes the book fascinating. We share the excitement and the sense of discovery of the songs of a bygone era with the author and we experience his disappointment at an entire decade (the 1980s) during which music did not matter in Bollywood.

The book has three sections and each section has several chapters describing the careers of music directors, lyricists and singers in chronological order. The book does include some personal details of the artists but only in the context of their careers. The author describes their career milestones through the songs they were involved in and this makes for fascinating reading. The book is a treasure trove of trivia like this:

C. Ramachandra received the lyrics for Dheere Se Aaja Ri Akhiyan Mein (Albela) at 4 pm. He composed the music for this song in the car on the way to the studio because the recording was scheduled at 6 pm.
Lata never sang for OP Nayyar due to an early misunderstanding between the two.
The been sound in Man Dole Mera Ta Dole (Nagin) was actually produced by a keyboard instrument called claviolin played by Kalyanji (of the Kalyanji-Anandji duo).
Sahir Ludhiyanvi had written “Tadbeer Se Bigadi Hui” as a ghazal and was shocked when he heard SD Burman’s frothy composition for it. He apparently protested but eventually gave in.
Although playback singing was prevalent by then, KL Saigal insisted on singing Babul Mora Naihar Chooto Hi Jaaye as he walked on the streets while a truck behind him recorded the song live!
Lata boycotted the Filmfare Awards till 1957 because they did not have a category for singers. Finally, Filmfare relented and gave her the award for Best Playback Singer for Aaja Re Pardesi (Madhumati) in 1958. Lata convinced Filmfare to institute separate awards for male and female singers next year.

This book is a must-read for all Bollywood music lovers. After the first few chapters, I realized that the best way to enjoy this book is to actually listen to the songs being described in the book while reading. Through listening the song, you become a part of the story behind it.

Quentin Tarantino songs

I watched Inglourious Basterds last night and, as with other Tarantino movies I have seen, loved the songs as much as the movie itself. There is a certain quality to Tarantino songs – off-beat, melodic, dark, retro – that sounds amazing in the movies but also make for great listening by themselves.

My original plan was to put together a Tarantino playlist but a bunch of people have already beaten me to it, so let me just point to them:

Happy listening!

India’s First Backward Narrative Song?

There are many reasons to watch “Manmadhan Ambu”, Kamal Hasan’s movie released yesterday. For me, just one was enough – the backward narrative song “Neela Vaanam”. There is something weirdly compelling about watching a story unfold backwards. It’s jaw dropping how everything in the song moves backwards, except Kamal’s lips which sync perfectly with the song! He must have spent a lot of time learning to mouth the song in reverse during the shoot.

I went back home cheering the creative genius I had just seen only to be deeply disappointed when I found that the song’s premise was lifted from Coldplay’s Scientist.

The backward song video is not a new concept but Neela Vaanam likely the first Indian song to implement it. If you are aware of any other Indian song that implements backwards narrative, please let me know. And copy or not, the Neela Vaanam video is still cool and Manmadhan Ambu is still a nice movie.

Here are a few other reverse playback music videos that I could dig up: