Tuesday, February 08, 2005

voices in my head

if i am home you can almost always find me in that corner of the hall on my laptop.you can call out all you want but i am not hearing you. the only things i hear are the voices in my head. from illayaraja to iron maiden, mandolin srinivas to maroon 5 all of them happily coexist in the little itunes window and sing for me on-demand. putting them all in shuffle and listening as it switches from the heavily folk "vadi vadi vadi vadi china chiclet" (kattu kattu from thirupachi) to the classic rock "When all are one and one is all, To be a rock, and not to roll" (Stairway to heaven,Led Zeppelin) is all the high i need for the day.

Here is my thank you to a small subset of those providing juice to my jukebox.this post is about some of the female voices in the tamil film song world that i like and would like to listen to more often. the only criteria I am going to enforce , to make my job easier, is to list only those voices that have fewer numbers (but most of them golden) to their credit.I also issue the caveat that I am not a maven of any of the classical schools of music. the school I went to had wooden benches that I would bang arrythmically, sometimes leading to bleeding knuckles and the closest i come to sounding musical is when i am snoring.

Sadhna Sargam - Though she is a northy, the song that made me (as well as a gazillion others) take note of her was from Alaipayuthey. Snehithane is among the higher ranked songs in my library. A very melodious voice with just a bit of the hindi accent. Though I freely curse adnan sami for murdering my mother tongue I dont mind sadhna's diction in boom boom (from Boys).Another number that I like is Swasame from Tenali.

Shreya Ghosal - One of my policies regarding movies and music , especially Indian ones is that the original is always better and so I regularly skip the remakes ,music, movie and all. This stupid notion almost made me overlook Shreya Ghosal's presence in the Pathukulle number from Vasoolraja MBBS. In fact I saw the movie just for this song and ended up enjoying both. I can almost visualise her smiling as she sings Sandiyarae from Virumaandi and lowers her voice to a whisper to suit some of the lyrics. Hard to believe she is yet another northy. Other songs of hers that keep cropping up are azhagina azhagi from E20U18, elangaathu veesuthe from Pithamagan and dil dooba from khakee(i lied when i said tamil film song world..shud've been film song world)

Madhumita - Yet another rising voice in my opinion. I really liked the song Kana Kaanum from 7g rainbow colony and thats the only famous number she seems to have sung. One of my friends who is about infinitely more musically capable than I am seemed to think that song wasn't all that tough to sing. I still think she was wrong. The song is sung very earnestly and I think that requires some talent above the average. Waiting to hear more from her.

Bombay Jayshri - Saving the best for the last seems to be the norm. Here's a voice that is famous all over south india. Anyone who knows the notes of carnatic classical is sure to have heard this name. A sizeable contingent of my near and extended family goes from sabha to sabha during the december music season.I'd always assumed my carnatic gene had been swapped with the lazy gene at conception as I would have none of that, preferring a movie instead. A couple of things caused me to pay attention to carnatic music - a.r.rahman's alai payuthey from alai payuthey and bombay jayshri's vaseegara from minnale. she managed to repeat the same genre of singing in Ondra Renda (Kaakha Kaakha) and Malargale (Puthukottailirunthu saravanan) with great results. I won't claim any nonsense about how her carnatic background is obvious from either of these fantastic renditions. Its just a glorious voice.period. I'm reminded of Unnal Mudiyum Thambi a great movie that illustrates how carnatic music can be taken to the masses. Just give me more voices from the same stable and I'd be quite happy.

Thats just 4 voices out of the hundreds that launch me into aural heaven. Are there any that I missed ? Any other worthy mentions that you think my ears would be happy to hear ? Use the comments. Make yourself heard. My earphones are plugged in.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

nanba,

Anita chandrashekar? "Azhagiya Asura"?

Anuradha Sriram is one of my favorites. "Megam Konduva" from Vali is one of my evergreen favorites.

if you remove the constraint: limited number of songs->
chitra and P.Susheela?

Listen to pudhiya mugham, P.S is just too good in that. She has sung hell a lot of golden oldies as well (if ur intereseted).

and chitra is sort of a "new nightingale". amazingly beautiful voice. There are hell a lot hindi songs as well which she has sung. check it out.

to give some classical touch-->
one name which might never appear on any film credits is "Sudha Raghunathan". But if u ever get a chance, do listen to some of her songs. Just to relish that golden voice.

As a matter of fact MS has sung very less number of cinema songs and perhaps is the best voice till date and defintely for some time to come ;-)

~current

catcharun said...

current danks for charging my blog up da
never heard of azhagiya asura...will take a listen.
there are all these "lesser" known numbers that quietly slip under my radar just like pathukkule
the constraint stays , if only to restrict me from going postal on my blog and u readers(the millions ). i could've written pgs abt MS or chitra or susheela or janaki or even bhanumati -"masila" from Alibabavum 40 thirdurgalum..
sudha raghunathan .. YELELO .. coming soon for a million years now. i know who she is dude.she was left out cos the other constraint was film music.
seri ippo nikatti comments blogavuda perusa poodum..
appala kandukirraen maa..

Anonymous said...

current : didnt like azhagiya asura or that anita's voice all that much..its different but i dont think its a voice i am looking forward to hear more of
anuradha sriram , i accept, was a slip on my part. the 2 songs in vallee are sung in a fantastically different manner. here's another one u might've missed "Olli Kuchi" from the movie Red.

Anonymous said...

How abt getting yourslef a apple Shuffle ?
I am shuffling ilayaraja & K.J in my iPod.

--Badri--

catcharun said...

how abt it?
i calculated that if i skip lunch for about 50 days i could get myself a ipod mini. for a shuffle i might not need to starve that much but i'm a control freak..will sorely miss a display. thats why i prefer itunes on my machine. i dont have to starve a single day. how abt that?