I call this Mu'sick' -

" Kanda Naal Muthalaai kaathal peruguthadi....kaiyinil vela piditha karunai siva baalanai....."

A few disclaimers before i proceed further. I am not a music critic. I have no grt music knowledge as such. But I have the locus standi of being an ardent music fan. So i guess i have all the moral rights to spell out my take on music, the contemporary style.

Whats with the music composers these days.....? Is it a dire shortage of creativity or the prospect of unearthing obscene money in this film industry ? The film industry itself, btw,is, of late, redefining its boundaries, at a tremendous pace. Why the quality of music is never quite the same like it was a few decades back or say atleast a decade back. This is regarding both tamil as well as hindi music ( I will talk abt hindi later on).

Before we get to provide a critical analysis of contemporary music, we shd stop to think how music is being redefined, in terms of its focus, since last 50 years.
and Music as everybody knows is an eclectic mixture of vocal and instrumental components, institutionalised, into a soulful rendition of the intangible inner voice .

Early days, music was a support function in the film industry ( it still is, but still major changes have happened). That was the Tyaagaraaja Bhaagavathar era. There ws not much of instrumental component happening. focus was totally on content of song in a simple style.

Then came our M.S.Viswanathan era. The instrumental component was still relatively low profile. but this era saw the effect of english jazz, pop etc finding its way. Still the songs were focussed on lyrics and vocal while the instrumental part was a perfect foil to the vocal rendition. I wd say the best ever songs ( from my viewpoint) came from this era.

Then came the IllayaRajaa era. now this era is again divided into two distinct phases. The first phases was a painless transition of the MSV music style based on more vocal components into a partial instrumental commitment. There ws more use of the tabla, flute, strings etc. Then with more ' competitors' the focus was to absorb and appreciate the role that instrumental component had to play. The music industry was on the threshold of witnessing an enormous change now. The pros were the new developments in sound technology resulting in a better transmission of vocal and instumental outputs.

Then ofcourse came A.R.R. Instrument suddenly became the king. The songs were now more closely treading the carnatic path and ofcourse others were there too. But music was heavily instrumentalised.

now there are different players. Not much to talk abt them.
In all these eras , i have had fav songs. so it is not like i advocate a particular era.
Now the problem lies with the practice of using technology substituting it for human creativity. I do love techno music but not when they manifest as noise signals without the human element in them.

run a track. start mixing music with it. this is hardly the way music as started by man, with his brain-mind interconnection envisaged itself.
most often, the spirit of a song gets lost in the music that engulfes it. and there are thousands of sounds operating in absolute incoherence that u cant understand whats happening. I call this robotic music. the only difference between human and robots is humans can feel and think for themselves. we are tring to logicise the musical exercise even though it is supposed to be an art!

next overt plagiarism.
keep downloading foriegn music and add a bit of masalaa to it. and u are done. the song becomes a chart buster. for heaven sake, dont write " music composed by....". instead mention "music adapted by"! that wd be more honest.

Remixes. The song i mentioned at the top ( kanda naal....)is a typical example. adding a supremely fast beat to what is a slow mellifluous song achieves what purpose. Just imagine if if u were to listen to a similar fast remix of Bombay Jayashree's Sarvam Brahma Mayam....u will go crazy. I also listen to remixes. i liked alaipaayuthey remix. but teh difference is the instrument sounds were light, more connecting to a bhajan / devotional song. ofcourse carnatic music buffs would ridicule even that. they have the right to do so.

Technically a remix of a carnatic song or a old song is like fast food. i prefer the term junk food when the stuff gets more ruthless (acc to me). nobody has time to compose. take a base. add a lot of ingredients to it. make sure it is spicy ( peppy in music terminology). while fast food hurts the stomach, remixes hurt the original composer. second it is ' covert' plagiarism. what is the fun in a taking an old song and adding technology to it and presenting it as oldwine in a new bottle? it may still require talent. but pls dont call that creativity for heaven sake.

finally i hate " dapaanguthu" or tapori songs! these have become a regular feature of films nowadays. for attracting masses. video and audio are in intense competition to decide which is the worst between them in illustration of such dapaanguthu songs.

Even if i am not a purist in listening to music, i cannot stand such gross indifference to music, the way it is done.

Thats market driven approach for u. music is hot business. not an art for self actualisation!

For the purists, I have nothing to say.

for guys like me, just keep hoping for sth better. cribbing in the meanwhile.
and for the masses who like such masalaa stuff - its ur time baby.

That leaves to another fundamental debate -
which of the two is superior - Creation or the creator ?

PS :

The charanam of kanda naal muthalaai song sounds similar in tune to the charanam of " Kurai ondrum illai...." song sung by MS. isn't it?