Wake up Raja! We are awaiting your feast!
Cheran's recent film is publicised with Raja's photo with a slogan "Isaignani yin 31vadhu aandil". It is not an easy thing to stay that long in film music industry and that too with strong base of fans and churning out hits.But the albums of Raja in tamil in the last 2 years make us wonder if he is losing his magic.
Some common sore-points observed in Raja's recent albums:1. Ear jarring synth stuff and poor sound recording2. Not adhering to his forte of using manual orchestra3. Not coming up with his style of "varna mettu" with the tune taking a roller-coaster ride4. Having "Not-so-catchy" pallavis that too usually with pauses, that tempts the listener to hit the next track5. Not using excellent veteran signers like S.P.B, Chitra,Janaki etc.6. Rehashing his own past tunesWhen Raja can still deliver his best compositions in malayalam movies, God only knows why is he not interested in tamil films.Raja's music to films by his favourite directors like Fazil and Balumahendra were not up to his standards.
Somewhere I read an interview by Vidhu Vinod chopra, the famous producer, director and writer. He spoke of R.D. Burman, who lost his magic in his olden years and because of the insecured feeling and being unable to cope up with contemporary music, he made further blunders and all his albums bombed.Vidhu vinod had counselled him, given his all the time and extracted the best out of him for "1942 A love story". The genius went to grave with re-discovered fame and prestige.Somehow this reminded me of the mindset Raja is in nowadays.
We are all still waiting for Raja's feast with appalam and vadai, he had promised to serve. Once in an interview in 90s he referred to his compositions so far as just pickle. And alas! nowadays, we are not even served the pickle.
Vignesh
