Blogical Conclusion

VETTAIYAADU VILAIYAADU

The latest Gautam Menon-Harris Jayaraj combination is something of a hit-or-miss, but the hits, thankfully, outnumber the misses.

MAR 19, 2006 - EVERYONE KNOWS THAT GAUTAM MENON’S MOVIES are synonymous with Harris Jayaraj’s music, but no one talks about the silent third partner: the lyricist Thamarai. Who but a woman could have dreamed up the gorgeous Vaseegara (Minnalé), which wasn’t just about being in love but about being a woman in love! Could a man have confessed to yearnings such as oru porvaikkul iru thookkam, indicating that love, sometimes, is simply a couple’s shared slumber under a sheet? Now, in Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu, she writes about love from a man’s point of view, Vaa vandhu ennai sernthidu, en tholgalil theynthidu. He isn’t merely asking his lover for an embrace; he’s asking her for an embrace so tight, she’ll abrade away against his shoulders. Oh, that’s passion!

But very little of this passion carries over to the music for the two love duets. Paartha Mudhal Naale (Bombay Jayashree, Unni Menon; is this the first time Menon is singing for Kamal Haasan since the mid-eighties’ Ponmaané in Oru Kaidhiyin Diary?) and Uyirilé (Mahalakshmi, Srinivas) are both beautifully sung – but not much more. Jayaraj dresses up the first number with harmonica bursts and the second one with mournful, Yo Yo Ma-in-Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon-style cello bowing, but the former is a disappointing rehash of Jayaraj’s own Ayyayyo Pudichirukku (Saamy) and Suttum Vizhi (Ghajini), and the latter is something like AR Rahman’s Porkalam (Thenali), a nice-enough tune but without a hook, a meandering melody looping upon itself unto infinity.

Thankfully, there are three other reasons to buy the album. The shamelessly catchy Neruppé (Francom Solar Sai, Sowmya Raoh) is set to the beats we first heard in the Kaliyon ka chaman remix and then in the May Maadham number in Jay Jay (by Bharadwaj) – but this version, with Arabic inflections, is the best; just thinking of it gets my feet tapping. Then there’s a refreshingly unusual hero-introduction song, Karka Karka (Devan, Tippu, Nakul, Andrea). While in a Vijay or Ajith starrer, this would have been a straightforward gaana item, here it’s an elegant, satin-smooth affair (save for some gratuitous hip-hop affectations). Expectedly, it’s a number that deifies the leading man – he’s learnt to walk on water! he carries his death in his shirt pocket! – so it’s only fitting that it sounds almost chant-like, like a shloka set to a high-bass counterpoint and the barest hint of strings. It works wonderfully.

But the most interesting is Manjal veyyil (Vijay, Nakul and Hariharan, straining at the upper registers), and the reason it’s so interesting is a bit technical. The melody of a typical Tamil – even Indian – film song can be mapped out along these lines: Opening, First Interlude, Stanza, (back to) Opening, Second Interlude, (repeat of) Stanza, (and end with) Opening. This one’s mapping, though, is off the chart: Chorus, Opening, Chorus, Opening, Chorus, Opening, Chorus, Interlude, Opening, Stanza, Chorus, Opening, (and fade out with) Chorus. Phew! With an utterly dreamy fusion of disco and rock, this is the track that most restored my faith in the Gautam Menon-Harris Jayaraj combination.

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