Thank you dvdunlimited for sharing those thoughts. illayaraja is my fav. music director ( no surprises there). I grew with Rehman music ( 90's) and still love old school Rehman , but off late I feel he is sold out to more "greener pastures" and has forced me to look elsewhere ( that’s really how I feel in love with illayaraja's music). Great musician , a true genius and living legend.

I'm sure he could have done more in Hindi if:

a) He didn't take tons of films at a time in the 80s/90s in Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam
b) They didn't remake the very South Indian sounding songs of his in Hindi.



IR himself has used singers like Lata Mangeshkar and Shreya Ghosal in Tamil, so I don't exempt him from the North Indian Singer trend in the South. Rahman was the one who started it big time But you're right, the pronunciations in Tamil film music these days is horrible.



All my favorite Tamil albums were IR until Roja came along and I started liking ARR more. I've gone back and listened to some of IR's 80s stuff, and I dunno, he uses a lot of the same beats over and over in many songs. I think if he had taken fewer films and worked longer on them the music would have been a little more intricate, as he is not lacking in knowledge of music. Not that I dislike IR, I just think he is kind of overrated. He will also tend not to do much creatively with traditional beats like ARR does.

That said, I am still looking forward to hearing Thiruvasagam in Symphony.

Listening to him for the past few years I can humbly conclude that I am not at a level to judge him, I can only listen to him.

I strongly believe that quantity is necessarily not quality, however I often take this example - he has composed 4000 songs in total and even if statistically speaking only 10% of that is "good" music (which BTW is a very conservative number) - that is still 400 songs, which is much more "hit" songs produced by any single artist that I know of.

Add to that

- he has 2 PhD's ( Honorary) and has written several books

- He is also the first Asian to compose Symphony with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London.

- Passed out of Trinity College of Music, London, with honors and gold medal.

- Bestowed with the honorary citizenship and presented with the key to the Teaneck Township, New Jersey

If you have interest I would recommend visiting his official site and spend your cyber-time @ http://www.raaja.com/

Further Accolades @ http://www.raaja.com/accolades.html

More articles : http://www.raajangahm.com/articles.html

I personally think he is severely under-rated !, but again that’s just my personal opinion. I for one am very happy to have "rediscovered" this genius. Got to get back and listen to "Raja Raja Cholan Nan"

I am not talking about pronunciations, but even meanings. For e.g. in Top 10, the 1st songs is "appan senja thappilae aatha petha vethilae" from Thirupachi. I am not sure why the censor didnt cut these lines!



The only repeat I can think of "Rakki Muthu Rakku" song from Ejamaan and another one that sound similar (even exactly same) from another movie of Prabhu (cant remember), but may be I dont know much about music (learning though thru CD-Rom just to understand the basics so I can love more of what I love!)

If you have time before going to bed, visit http://www.raaga.com and click on the Non-Stop channel and select IR songs. I doubt if you will even know when you slept.

I just went thru the list of movies that raaga has in their site and out of 230 or so movies 197 are musical hits. So the ratio is definitely not 10%.

There is this person that worked with both IR and RDB (Ashok Shukla - sound engineer for lot of Hindi and few tamil movies, including Oomai Vizhigal) and he mentioned to me that RDB and IR are true genius and now we need to add ARR as well. End of the day, "Isaikku Vasamaga Idhayamundo"

No doubt that lyrics have gone to crap.



He's used the drum beat he used in Ilaya Nila from Payanangal Mudivathillai in a lot of songs. I know there's not a limitless number of beats but it annoyed me when I heard 5 or 6 straight songs on someone's mix tape that sounded like that. Much of the time it sounds like there's little orchestration in the songs. Very sparse instrumentation.

IR-Kamal combo is pretty good, so I think Mumbai Express' music will be decent, though Virumaandi was only so-so. My fave IR albums are the ones he did for Mani Ratnam. They're quite varied and creative.

I will try to listen to that raaga.com channel when I get the chance.

Posted this in another thread - Look what Mani Ratnam is saying

http://www.hindu.com/mp/2005/03/02/stor ... 630100.htm

With "Roja," Mani Ratnam also moved from Ilayaraja to A. R. Rahman, a transition he described as "a real culture shock." "Ilayaraja was - is - so prolific," he recalled. "He could compose your entire background score in half a day. He'd watch the film once. Then, with a harmonium and a 40-page notebook at hand, he would scribble down notation without striking anything out! If you had your own ideas, you had to get them in when he was watching the film, otherwise you stood no chance."

So are we going to see a Mani Ratnma/Illayaraja collabration again ? ** Hope Hope **

Yup!! Man is genious!

Btw!! did'nt Raja do background of Lajja too, besides the best song on the soundtrack?

It gives me goose bumps to listen to Aey zindgi gale lagale!

Yeah he did Lajja BGM and the song Kaun Dagar . My knowledge of hindi sountracks is very limited. so i wonder which film is this song from "Aey zindgi gale lagale" ?

From my all term favourite SADMA! music by maestro, and lyrics by my other maestro..gulzar sahab!

I look forward to BEI's next release Sadma dvd that is supposedly to be anamorphic widescreen with OAR and hopefully, progressive

Ah Sadma - Never seen the hindi version , how does it compare to tamil version Moondram Pirai ?.

On the discussion of Ilayaraja--His composition for Hey Ram(Tamil version) is one of the most breathtaking music my ears have ever witnessed. Only later to discover that he composed it with the Budapest Symphonic Orchestra makes this album a chef-d'oeuvre.

dvdisoil: can you recommend some other great Ilayaraja works.

Its my pleasure to recommend illayraja, As you probably guessed listing his hit songs will be a big list so let me restrict myself to my current favorites ( personal choice). Also all the album is in Tamil ( mostly from 70s/80s)

Agni Natchathram
Alaigal Oivathilai
Anjali
Annakkili
Barathi (wonderful BGM )
Devar Magan
Geethanjali
Guna
Hey Ram ( BGM galore)
Idhayathai Thirudathe
Illamai Oonjaladuthu
Johnny
Kadalora Kavithaigal
Kadhal Oviyam
Mann Vasanai
Meera
Moonram Pirai
Mouna Raagam
Mudhal Mariyadhai
Nayagan
Nizhalgal
Pithamagan
Punnagai Mannan
Raja Paarvai
Rettai Vaal Kuruvi
Salangai Oli
Sathya
Sethu
Sikappu Rojakal
Sindhu Bhairavi
Siraichalai
Virumandi
Vishva Thulsi - starting to get into this


His real strength lies in BGM - the following groups has "ripped" BGM's , you might want to join and get those files (though select the "No Email" option or else your inbox will be flooded with emails)

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ilaiyaraaja/

I snagged Mouna Ragam from there - you have to listen to it , its great.

Also I love his fusion albums

Nothing but wind -
http://dvdunlimitedonline.com/shop/prod ... ts_id=1948

How to Name it - http://dvdunlimitedonline.com/shop/prod ... ts_id=1949

India 24 hours - I have not listened to this much (yet)


If I was allowed to take one album of Illayaraja to my grave then I would take Nizhalgal and Johnny ( yeah I know its 2 !)

Enjoy

To spice things up

Well dvdisoil gave a pretty decent one. Like he said, Jhonny is breathtaking ("Kaatril endhan geetham - you wont believe my 4 yr old daughter love this song and she sing it completely! Its hard to believe but its true - she by the way also like other IRsongs, because I either play IR songs or listen to traffic news!")

apart from dvdisoil list you can listen to all IR songs for

1. Bharathiraja (Vairamuthu - you will feel the folk here)
2. Manirathnam (mostly modern)
3. Balumahendra (Sadma is one of them)
4. Balachandar
5. Mohan (actor - cant imaging mohan with out mic/music/ir)
6. Kamal
7. Rajini

also go to http://www.raaga.com and select IR songs, I looked at all of them and out of 210 moveis 197 are very good. so you will like a whole lot of them.

BTW, listen to Azhagi (specially "Oliyile therivadhu devathaya - you will be shocked if you watch the movie - the songs comes in totally unexpected moment, with out any clue/music before the song so it begins as a shocking song but will mesmerize into it)

I can keep on going, but restricting.

Abt Virumandi - please note that this is the most difficult songs that IR ever composed. The music, meaning and the tone varies between accused (kamal) 1version of the story and the approver version of the story. So he has done an excellent job.

Pithamagan is also good.

Oriental Records has released some of IR's 80s albums on CD, but they're kind of expensive. Even in the Chennai airport How to Name it Was $11 while the other CDs were $5 or $6.