Music And Movies

1. MSV : The background 2. MSV : His breakthrough year    3. MSV : The consolidation years    4. MSV : Variety and Versatility    5. MSV : The split     6. MSV : Some aspects of their style  7. MSV : Vishwanathan - Ramamurthy: Their legacy  8. MSV : Birth of MSV  9. MSV : The melodies   10. MSV : The trendsetters  11. MSV : The RD Burman influence  12. MSV: Early 1970s melodies   13. MSV : Review of early 90s TFM   14. MSV : A new competitor   15. MSV : The order changeth slowly 16. MSV : Beyond Tamil films    17. MSV : His legacy

Part 1: Background - A legend called Gantasala  Part 2: Initial years of struggle Part 3: Baby steps in Tamil land   Part 4: Climbing to numero uno spot in Telugu    Part 5: Tryst with classical music     Part 6: SPB & Raja        Part 7: Non-Raja Tamil songs of the late 70s      Part 8:   SPB, Chiranjeevi and early 80s Telugu film music      Part 9: Illayararaja - Vishwanath - SPB         Part 10: Illayaraja - Vamsi - SPB            Part 11: SPB in Hindi films       Part 12: SPB- Raja - Tamil film music 80s - 1       Part 13: SPB- Raja - Tamil film music 80s - 2      Part 14: SPB- Raja - Tamil film music 80s - 3        Part 15: SPB's domination down south    Part 16: Dominance in Kannada        Part 17: Emergence of Rahman and the Cha...

( You can read the earlier parts here:  Part 1 ,  Part 2 ,  Part 3 ,  Part 4 ,  Part 5 ,  Part 6  ,  Part 7 ,  Part 8 ,   Part 9 ,   Part 10 ,  Part 11 ,  Part 12 ,  Part 13 ,  Part 14 ,  Part 15 ,  Part 16  & Part 17 ) In the post 2000s, the number of memorable SPB songs came down. He did keep singing the hero intro song for Rajni, I personally am not a fan of 'balelakka' and other songs of the same nature. It was clear that the new gen, with its constantly changing singers and that unending quest for something 'different', was calling SPB only for select songs. There was no guarantee that these songs were good. Telugu and Kannada probably gave more opportunity to SPB compared to Tamil. The Hindi imports became popular in Telugu and Kannada as well, with Sonu Nigam become a big hit in Kannada.  A couple of songs of SPB that I like from the 2000s are Raja songs. I will give them here ...

  ( You can read the earlier parts here:  Part 1 ,  Part 2 ,  Part 3 ,  Part 4 ,  Part 5 ,  Part 6  ,  Part 7 ,  Part 8 ,   Part 9 ,   Part 10 ,  Part 11 ,  Part 12 ,  Part 13  & Part 14 ) Starting the beginning of 80s and all the way to the mid 90s, SPB dominated the musical landscape of Tamil, Telugu and Kannada. In case of Malayalam, Yesudas was the immovable legend and as with Hindi, SPB's Malayalam diction wasn't as good as his Tamil or Kannada diction. Even with the three languages, SPB's domination was complete in case of the Telugu film industry. In case of Tamil, though SPB sang the most songs by a male singer during those years, the man dominating Tamil film music was Illayaraja. We had lots of famous films in which SPB's voice did not feature. Others like Yesudas, Malaysia Vasudevan, Jayachandran and later Mano, also featured in Illayaraja's songs prominently. In case of Kannada, Dr.Rajku...

( You can read the earlier parts here:  Part 1 ,  Part 2 ,  Part 3 ,  Part 4 ,  Part 5 ,  Part 6  ,  Part 7 ,  Part 8 ,   Part 9 ,   Part 10 ,  Part 11 ,  Part 12  & Part 13 ) Versatility - Part 2 In the last post, we looked at some songs which showcase the versatility of SPB in singing modern songs, high energy songs, emotional climax songs and songs that needs a softness of touch. That was quite a range but that was not all. In this post we will look at some more aspects of SPB's singing with the songs he sang for Raja in the 1980s are examples. A genre of songs which SPB was famous even before he started singing for Raja was the comic songs genre. We had in one of the initial posts observed how SPB would mimic the voice of a comedian like Allu Ramalingiah. Raja used SPB for many comic songs. Let us look at a few of them here. 'randi randi randi' from 'Rudraveena' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlbRxxnmzII...

  ( You can read the earlier parts here:  Part 1 ,  Part 2 ,  Part 3 ,  Part 4 ,  Part 5 ,  Part 6  ,  Part 7 ,  Part 8 ,   Part 9 ,   Part 10 ,  Part 11  & Part 12 ) The versatility 1 As I stated in the earlier, SPB of the 80s was a well formed,confident singer with a unique style of his own. His association with Raja in the 80s helped him in two ways: One, he got to sing a lot of popular numbers, which ensured he took his rightful place in the hearts of the people. Two, Raja gave him songs which pushed him hard and ensured that SPB was able to showcase his versatility to the world. In this article we will talk about how Raja used SPB versatile singing to give us some everlasting numbers. Before I begin the analysis, let me also state that though SPB was the foremost singer in Tamil, he did dominate the Tamil film music landscape the way he did in Telugu and Kannada. Raja loosely followed this pattern of giv...

  ( You can read the earlier parts here:  Part 1 ,  Part 2 ,  Part 3 ,  Part 4 ,  Part 5 ,  Part 6  ,  Part 7 ,  Part 8 ,   Part 9 ,   Part 10  & Part 11 ) We have seen the emergence of Illayaraja in an earlier part. By the beginning of 1980s he had established himself as the foremost music director of Tamil film industry. Veterans like MSV were fading and the other music directors of that era like Shankar Ganesh, Chandrabose and others could not match up to the quality that Raja was delivering.  In the 1980s, SPB had also found his style. This was the culmination of more than a decade of singing. SPB was now extremely confident of himself and his style. With the veteran actors slowly fading from both Tamil and Telugu film industry, SPB, who was the voice of the new generation of actors, was in high demand across languages.  In the next couple of posts, we will not have much to discuss about SPB's singin...

 (SPB - K Vishwanath) (You can read the earlier parts here:  Part 1 ,  Part 2 ,  Part 3 ,  Part 4 ,  Part 5 ,  Part 6  ,  Part 7 , Part 8 ) As I said in the last part, the Illayaraja - Vishwanath and Illayaraja - Vamsi combination created some amazing music in Telugu film world in the 1980s. In both cases, the female singers were varied but when it came to the male voice, it was always SPB. Let us first take up the Illayaraja - Vishwanath combination. This combination made a total of four movies together: Sagara Sangamam, Swathi Muthyam, Swarnakamalam and Chinnabayi. The last movie was not well known the first three are considered classics in Telugu cinema. K V Mahadevan was Vishwanath's regular partner when it came to music and he has given amazing music for Vishwanath, be it 'Siri Siri Muvva', 'Saptapadhi', 'Jeevana Jyoti', 'Seethamalakshmi' or that all time hit, 'Sankarabaranam'. So when Vishwanath came to Illayaraja for 'Sagara Sang...

One day while driving my car to office I tuned into a Kannada FM channel heard this song. Right from the first flight of violins I knew that this was definitely an Illayaraja song. As the song progressed, I would have wagered my salary on it. I wanted to know which movie this song was from. Unfortunately by the time I reached office I had forgotten the lyrics. Given my inability to sing even the simplest of the tunes, all I could tell my colleague was, "It was a wonderful song and it went like..lalala lalala". She smiled, probably thinking that this was one mystery which even Sherlock Holmes would be hard pressed to solve. Then I saw this song on TV but as is their wont, they did not put up the film name!! One day I saw a cassette of the movie 'Pallavi Anupallavi'. Knowing it was a Raja - Maniratnam combination movie I immediately picked it up. And I was pleasantly surprised when this song played. We will listen to this song today. If you observe Maniratnam's mo...