Slumdog Millionaire

For the last few days all I see on news is Slumdog Millionaire, or atleast in the pleasant category. I have't seen the movie yet ... so it would be unwise to judge it but I have really been hearing the music too much lately. Well, the most popular song seems to be Jay Ho ... and it is a nice song, feel good, somewhat inspiring. But the big question is does it really deserve a Golden Globe let alone Oscars ?

Just consider a single month. How many soundtracks are released in India in this span ? It would be quite hard to guess ... and how many of them did you like ? Atleast ten. If you ask this to ten different people you can surely add atleast one to the list and what if each of the ten asks ten another and so on ... ? Surely you will get more than a handful.
And just think what this figure will be for the whole world and for one full year ? Well, that should be way too much, so let's narrow dow the list to just english productions. Still that should be a pretty good number.

So, the winner of a Golden Globe or an Oscar is meant to be the best among these. Not just in terms of earcandy, but more relevantly the uniqueness and the perfect chemistry with the visual. Does the song or the background score from Slumdog Millionaire do that ? In case you are confused, just consider last year's Oscar Winner, Atonement by Dario Marianelli. Does SM's music sound that unique and perfect to the movie compared to Atonement's ?
I think it doesn't.

Let's take "Jay Ho" . Any Indian with an average love for music and the most average memory and sense can feel something's not right in places. We wll fell that the songs takes an odd and unusual turn at places leaving us humming a familiar tune from reminiscence. Well, in case you didn't you should hear atleast "Ellapugazhum" from Azhagiya Tamil Magan, "Maa Thujhe Salam" from Vande Mataram, "Newyork Nagaram" from Jillanu Oru Kaadhal for starters. All by AR Rahman. And once you have done that change the visuals to something patriotic like Maa Thujhe Salaam or Lakshya or something else like that. With a bit of editing that should fit perfectly well. It's because the mood of the composition is not original and unique. This has been the thing with many of AR Rahman's recent works. Most of the songs are heavily inspired, some from his own previous hits. Even if you take "Ghajini " the songs "Aye Bachoo", "Behka" and "Latoo" have a very common mood and rhythm. The second thing he is doing is relying too heavily on third part stuff like Loop Packs and generated rhythms. You can definitely feel this especially if you have worked atleast wth some softwares like "FruityLoops" or "Reason".

So the big question is are we taking Rahman too high ? I believe we are and overlooking inhouse talent like Amit Trivedi, Pankaj Awasthi, Ali Asmat, Faizi and so .