Wisdom Of The Crowds?

Singapore's Tamil FM channel (Oli 96.8 FM) has chosen Kangal Irandal from Subramaniapuram as its Song of Year 2008. The annual ranking of Top 100 Tamil film songs is based on a public voting of the selected songs and it has sprung up a few surprises. The first song deserves its place. Similarly 6 songs from Vaaranam Aayiram figure in the Top 15 songs and this was also expected since this album was widely acknowledged as the best album of the year.

While I don't know how many people really participate in this voting, I have a feeling that even a small swing can push a song up or down. I was quite surprised to see 3 songs from Kuruvi making it to the Top 10. I really doubt whether Kuruvi deserves a place in the Top 10 list. The only song worthy of it is Thaen Thaen. If one were to look at the reasons behind Kuruvi's superior performance, one could be the general popularity of actor Vijay among Singapore locals and the other could be the lack of genuine public support for other well deserving songs. How else can I explain when I see a pretty average song like Mozha Mozhannu Yamma Yamma from Kuruvi at #16  while there are much better songs which make up the bottom of the list.

Madhushree is the new Udit Narayan

The same Madhushree who gave us mesmerizing melodies like Mayilirage (Anbe Aaruyire) has taken on the task of butchering the Thamizh language. By doing so, Madhushree has replaced the void created by Udit Narayan (remember Kadhal Pisase from the movie Run?) who doesn’t seem to be singing that many Tamil songs these days.

Most of the recent releases have atleast one song by Madhushree and almost all these songs have some mistake or the other.

1. Unakkul Naane from the movie Pachakili Muthucharam (MD: Harris Jeyaraj)

Keerthi has done an elaborate post on this. The word uLLam has been sung as ullam. This is not the first time some non-Tamil speaker is messing up with the same word. It also happened with Sunidhi Chauhan in the film Vallavan.

2. Oru Kalavani Payale Nee from the movie Lee (MD: D Imman)

Like the previous song, Madhushree has messed up the opening line in this too. If you listen to the entire song, you can spot many more gaffes.

களவானி has been sung as கலவானி

3. Perunthil Nee Enakku from the movie Pori (MD: Dhina)

This song has some interesting lyrics and is a captivating melody. It is being featured repeatedly in all the countdowns and those who watch Sun Music will get to see it atleast once every hour. It’s really sad to see such a good song being butchered by Madhushree’s Tamil.

ஆலில்லா நள்ளிரவில்

தினமும் காலையில் எனது வாசலில் இருக்கும் நாலிதல் நீதானே

A line which talks of the hero admiring the mistakes in the heroine’s poetry has been sung with a mistake. One wonders whether they planned it in advance J

எழுதும் கவிதையில் எழுத்துப் பிழைகலை ரசிக்கும் வாசகன் நீதானே

I urge Maruthuvar Ramadoss to give up his protest against Reliance and other retail behemoths and start focussing on chasing the damagers out of the TFM industry. The PMK founder has proved that a Tamil channel (Makkal Tholaikaatchi) can be run with people speaking fluent Tamil and not the popular FM Tamil. Makkal Tholaikaatchi is also using the services of noted Tamil scholar Ma Nannan (some of you might have seen him on Doordarshan in the past) to teach Tamil to the staff and comperes. If these singers are not able to speak fluent Tamil (even some native Tamil singers will fall under this category) they can be forced to get a clearance from Ma Nannan before singing in movies.