Rahman has made yet another great album. Oh, that is such a cliché statement! Well, what can I say, some clichés are nice. Raavan came with the fragrance of the rural society of India. The freshness of the muddy roads and the gregarious lot of people are easily referenced from his songs. It looks like great care has been taken in trying to get the lyrics in good Hindi unlike most mass-oriented or H-inglished songs of Bollywood these days. The songs are less likely to be liked in the first go. But you wouldn’t want to stop at one shot - just like Lay’s chips ;) And the songs begin to grow on you and haunt you. I am not too regular in watching movie trailers on TV, but I hope the promoters are taking care to make the public listen to the songs on a regular basis.
I am curious about how the songs will turn out to be in Tamil and Telugu, since the songs sound more suited for a Hindi setting. And the intensity of love of Ram for Sita and/or Sita for Ram and/or Raavan for Sita that the songs portray seems to be very high. I hope the same has been illustrated in the movie too. It is an expectation bench mark set for the actors and the director by Rahman. Now he sits back and relaxes to see if they did in fact live up to his standards.
One cannot help notice the contrast he shows in his compositions for various movies. Only a while ago, he gave us Vinnaithaandi Varuvaaya – and we can just understand the feel of the movie without even watching a photo shot from it. Sounds classy, romantic, light hearted, revering and peppy at the same time. Suddenly comes Raavan, with a mixture of sinister, intense, challenging, powerful – kind of songs, all of which bear a rural tinge and sound seemingly common place, yet with a flair of the Rahman signature. Bringing in the two Bharadwaj ladies to sing was a brilliant move. I’m not sure how many other singers there are to fill their shoes for their respective songs. Just too excited to hear the songs at a movie hall in the surround sound effect.
