Global recognition for IR's music.......

[pure bliss]

judge!

fulla arikkuthu.continue your eye opening inputs. ongala mathiri 4lu peru......ella nenga oruthare pothum IR ku, Global recognition kedaichudum .

[venkiks]

IR has to work more at home on what he is doing now. He must work more on more non-film albums like Thiruvasagam, symphony, HTN and NBW.
If he did that the world would come here and recognize him.

I don't think IR should go out pursuing recognition.

After all if IR is gone to the west, who else is here to give us our own music.

[kiru]

App et al, I hope I did not offend any of your sentiments. I do not even a bit of 'aadhangam' that is quite understandable with the accolades Rahman is accumulating. I am happy for Rahman, because he proves that our land is not a 'one-trick pony' with only IR around. The fact that the country has gained a foothold in high-technology area and many young people work all over the world lending credibility to the Indian intelligence is something to be proud of.
IR has his own style and today if it does not sell, it is ok. It still holds musical value. Though people dont agree with Mr. Judge, I think he has a point that IR's BGM/composition skills are the ones which can probably get him the limelight. I think IR can really beat Yanni at his game, but that sort of music needs to be 'marketed' which is kind of longshot now for IR. Today, I really, enjoyed every note of 'indha maan, undhan sondha maan'. THe flute fills, the strings for the high part of the charanam etc. How many people are going to enjoy this song nowadays whether in India or abroad ? Still, this is a fantastic POP/light music. Venkiks said it right - "if IR is gone to the west, who else is here to give us our own music".
Looks like the whole world has become a "melting pot" with the music/art of many cultures borrowing from each other. What is wrong in one person's art still having a 'flavor of the soil' !! In a see of jeans or evening gown or mini skirt clad beauties I see an elegant Indian woman in a 'kancheepuram' silk saree.

[app_engine]

Digression -

Kiru - I'm elated that ARR had made it big globally and I can't stop bringing him up in my discussions with Michiganders nowadays

I hope he gets Oscars and makes all of us happy. It may also serve the cause of other artists in India who weren't looked at in the past

End-digression

We all know any amount of our discussions isn't going make a difference on IR (or his managers) in musical aspects / way of handling relations etc. So essentially, all these posts are simply outbursts of 'Adhangam' only

On a different context, if we think of the other genius MSV, things were even worse than that of IR's. He had talent, good will etc. but got ignored even locally. (So much so that BR-IR-AVM had to step in and help him with MTK). And what about global recognition for him?

I think Indians in general, got some global recognition either during pre-independence time period (Tagore / CVR / Bose) or post-liberalisation time period (Aishwarya / ARR...) It appears that the 50 years or so when the country tried to align with Soviet and not the "west" (while claiming to be non-aligned and having a lot of restrictions in trade etc.) didn't do any good for global recognition of the talents there. MSV is the worst hit and IR to some extent. It possibly helped India a lot to stand on its own leg without much support (why even animosity) from the west but it also severely limited the exposure of our talents globally.

[app_engine]

Just to make things a little clear, even during 80's, there were any number of items that were on "the restricted list" of imports or with heavily imposed customs duties, even for regular manufacturing industries. Electronics industry, for which there was hardly any local mfr of components, had to face all kinds of trouble with customs to get parts even to produce anything. In that condition, to innovate, design, manufacture etc. needed extraordinary will / miracle etc - especially in the private sector.

It's not tough for me to see how much more difficult it would have been to get good quality musical stuff / recording stuff, which was a big handicap for all artists then. (Even sports was heavily clipped as I've read so many laments from the likes of Gavaskar of non-avaialbility of quality gear. He has mentioned that even Indian-made high quality stuff had to be bought from abroad as they were purely for export. I still remember people having to pay in $ to get Bajaj Chetak scooter if they didn't want to wait for years).

Considering such conditions, any achivement by MSV - IR (during their prime) on technological side is praise worthy. Not many youngsters of today can understand the struggle of people to get quality stuff as late as 80's and it's easy for them to talk about the "poor recording quality" of IR songs etc.

[njv]

app_engine

Impressive post, but big issue

how with all limitations, sound quality of priya, jhony, nizhalgal is still standing out compared to Nandalala and the likes!!! he should have kept the quality the same atleast.

My salangai oli "Cassette" that i bought when I bought my first "tape recorder" produces better sound than Nandala CD played in my home theater system with all possible sound technology logo.

One thing is very clear. IR didnt have any interest any more, but at the same time doesnt want to miss any assignment which gives him 25L with out moving an inch. Thats prob why he also throwed away his big archestra and just going with 15-20 ppl.

we are all justifying his act with our own views and hoping that he or someone close to him will take this message to him.

I know few ppl here, who are close to IR, but in front of IR, they talk everything but music. May be they are affraid. i talk to him couple of times, but more like a fan than a friend, so I had to keep my mouth shut (+ when u see him u just dont have words)

Hopefully ppl close to him and regular hubbers here take the courage to pass on the message.

[irir123]

njv - valid points - but who will take the message to him ?? and will he listen ? at least one expected that if and when IR works with fresh faces like Mysskin, the recording will be better - while NK recording is good, NL falls behind - noone knows whats going on !

[Hulkster]

May i ask what's wrong with Nandalala recording? I am able to enjoy the melodies well.

[app_engine]

njv,

The comparison on recording / production quality has to be actually between the priya cassette and some top selling album of TFM today (e.g. shivaji).

The reason ? simple - resource allocation. People come to IR today because he can ensure musical quality at ABYSMALLY LOW PRICES. I don't think he can command much to the producer today - be it musicians / equipment etc. I don't think (or don't want to believe) that it's because of IR's lack of interest in sound quality. At this stage, I think this is all he can afford

Once again reminds me of MSV's plight in late 80's...

[rprasad]

ITs funny to hear the wild speculations regarding reasons for IR's alleged recording issues. Firstly according to me i dont think there is anything wrong with Nandhalala recording and i am saying this after listening on the web and not the CD. Atleast there was nothing which jumps out and disrupts my listening pleasure. I only saw some people complain that the Keyboards and percussion were of cheap quality and supposedly IR used cheap ones for no reason or maybe to save cost?

and i dont think its right to compare NK with this that was totally a different kind of music than NL which was deliberately sedate and subdued. again comparing Priya and Johny or nizhalgal is the same issue diferent periods, different kind of music resulting in different recording experiences. Why even then i found a couple of songs from Agni Nakshtram which was a top class and hip album, but there were some issues with couple of songs recording which minor but noticeable. SO its not that only recent IR albums have issues.
I agree that the recording has been inconsistent for IR albums in the past and even in recent times. But again i somehow did not find anything which caused me not to enjoy the good songs. AS i said earlier these are probably a result of some inconsistencies in mixing and during the making of the final CD. and i dont think IR spends much time nowadays in involving himself with the mixing and final recording process. I think the fact that he involves himself so much in writing the music for the entire orchestra as well composing the songs makes him pay less attention to the final mixing and recording of the music into CD's. Again this is my opinion only which i think is more logical than resons like IR has no money. Now people might ask but what about earlier when he was doing more movies but again there were a lot of inconsistencies then too(lost in a huge bunch of movies he did then) we just had casettes and no cd's then, and maybe the people who did the final mixing and recording process did better jobs atleast for the good albums. and ofcourse IR was younger then, Just my sheer guess.
So people relax, IR is not broke and he still has the entire orchestra(note that he does not do many movies nowadays so its possible not everyone from the old orchestra still exists as they need to get paid as well) and producers/directors will pay him the due fees which he demands because lets face it people who come to him for music are for the reason that they only want him and not the market acceptability and hence pay is not a criteria.