And the Award Goes to..

Ilaiyaraaja’s score for ‘Naan Kadavul’ would definitely sound divine if heard as a standalone piece of music, but despite evoking apt emotions, it ended up sounding loud in the film. With ‘Eeram’ Thaman.S has finally arrived. Thaman has perfectly understood the film’s requirements and has given a score that helps to enhance the gloom, intrigue, thrill and eeriness in the visuals. The 13B score by Tubby and Parik is too loud to be called even average but still wanted to nominate to know how many actually liked this kind of loud scoring for a thriller. Shruthi Hassan managed to not draw any attention to her edgy Rock music score in “Unnai Pol Oruvan” and for a starter that is quite an achievement. Karthik Raaja’s orchestral riffs of tension and suspense, though doesn’t lift up the dull film, is apt in ‘Achamundu Achamundu’. I nominated James Vasanthan’s score for ‘Pasanga’, for no particular reason. I liked the film and liked music cues in some of the scenes which I don’t exactly remember now. The music just flows smoothly with the tone of the film, neither too subtle, nor so overpowering. It is important to note that James didn’t resort to any childish stock sound bytes for comedy scenes involving children. I haven’t seen Yogi yet.

My Favorite – Thaman.S for Eeram

Poll Result



Ilaiyaraaja is at his usual best in ‘Paa’. The enchanting violin theme of Auro needs no introduction. The chirpiness, the sarcasm and witty charm of Auro is embodied in the way Raaja plays the theme with playful staccato pauses between notes and phrases of the main melody. Though it was a melody originally composed for a somber philosophical number about soul wandering, Ilaiyaraaja proves that a composer can tweak a piece of music or a melody to evoke any desired emotion.

Rocket Singh – Salesman of the year is in my opinion, one of the toughest films to write a background score for, for any composer. The film is set in a pace that is true to real life by the writer and the director but the burden of adding rhythm, energy and pushing the momentum has been delegated totally to Salim-Suliaman. It annoys me when a filmmaker, who is unsure of his screenplay, pushes the job to the thump and loudness of a background score and wants it to solely carry the narrative through, but it worked perfectly for this film. It is a tough rope to walk on, but Salim-Sulaiman has succeeded in doing that. The score pushes the momentum to a desired extent and yet never overpowers the proceedings. It would be interesting to know what transpired between Shimit Amin and Salim-Suliaman, when they discussed the background score and the general aural tone of the film.

For the freaking madness of a capper “Kaminey”, Vishal Bharadwaj’s score is as gloomy as Tassaduq Hussain’s cinematography. Vishal resorts to retro and western for action and chase scenes with the theme ‘Go Charlie Go’ recurring throughout the film, and switches to a surreal classical orchestration for Charlie’s colorful dreams. The Charlie and Guddu’s flash back aided by an aching violin solo tries to add an emotional heft to what happened in the past. The mad rock-choir song (which wasn’t included in the Soundtrack CD) that converge all parallel lines to an exhilarating climax is the cherry on the cake.

I have already written about Amit Trivedi’s Score for “Wake up Sid” here and also about why I didn’t nominate Dev.D here.

My Favorite – Amit Trivedi for Wake up Sid

Poll Result

Grammy Award Winning Composer A.R.Rahman

So, from now on, it is going to be “Grammy Award Winning Composer” A.R.Rahman. The two Grammies for Slumdog Millionaire reassures the fact that the Globes and Oscars weren’t just because of the buzz or an after effect of the film’s international success. When I wrote this piece, defending that Rahman’s Slumdog Millionaire score is indeed one of his best; people were quick to ignore it as a sort of blabber by a fanatic. But with these Grammies that he has got now without any buzz and amidst a tough competition, though who were not convinced should at least now make an effort to understand the worth of Slumdog Millionaire Score.

Needle Drops

• A.R.Rahman’s Couples Retreat Score has been nominated for International Film Music Critics Association awards for Scoring Excellence in ‘Best Score in a Comedy Film’ category. This is really very significant considering that there was no buzz whatsoever about this score even in the hardcore Hollywood film score magazines and websites. Winning is highly unlikely though.



• Every little work that Michael Giacchino did in 2009 has been nominated in various categories of International Film Music Critics Association awards for Scoring Excellence.



• While posting this poll, I was in dilemma whether to nominate ‘Dev.D’ in background score (Hindi). The film is a musical, filled with songs all over but with limited space left for an instrumental background score. I did like few pieces in the background score, the score for the scene in which Paro cleans Dev’s room is one. Dev and Chanda’s themes – two instrumental pieces that got released in the film soundtrack CD were also good. I am still not sure. I have to watch Dev D again. Interestingly in all Bollywood awards, Amit Trivedi’s music for ‘Dev.D’ has been pushed to best background score category and none have included it in the Best Music Category.



• ‘Tamizh Padam’ is not just a spoof on Tamil films; there are enough spoofs on Tamil film background scores too (composer - B.Kannan). It really is not possible to spoof a genre of film without imitating background scores of those films. A complete joyride this film is.



• And happy to inform that Background score blog is listed in
  
  “10 Best of Bollywood blogs” in blogs.com and
  “600 Movie blogs you might have missed” list in Totalfilm.com

And the Nominees are..

Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na

I was watching ‘Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na’ DVD with director’s (Abbas Tyrewala) commentary ON. I was really surprised to listen to a film director speaking so much about the film’s background score in his DVD commentary. He talks about the thought process behind the background score in many of the scenes and also about how in general A.R.Rahman works on a film’s background score. Abbas talks about Aditi’s theme, Party music, Jai and Meghna’s theme, instrumental of ‘Jane tu mera kya hai’ and much more. Here is a sample.

Michael Giacchino's 'Up'swing

As expected Michael Giacchino has won over James Horner in Golden Globes this year with his classic score for Pixar’s ‘Up', and he is definitely a front runner in Oscars too. Though ‘Avatar’ score reminds us of so many other scores of James Horner, it also is really a special score which managed to peep through its head out of all those huge multi layered visual spectacle and the meticulous sound design. However, as I had already mentioned, the simplistic charm of ‘UP’ score wins over the exoticism of ‘Avatar’ score.



Now, here is one of my favourite cues from ‘Up’ which wasn’t a part of the Original Soundtrack release. It is a dramatic music piece scored for the scene in which Carl Fredrieksen is shown doing his daily chores alone after Emilie’s death. Conventionally any composer would have played the Emilie’s theme on a sober scale in a solo piano to evoke a sense of loneliness but for the way this scene is cut showing the boredom of Carl, this approach works and makes us feel that he has learnt to get on with his life. The grand bangs fit aptly as we witness how the surroundings of Carl’s house have changed for worse.

Michael Giacchino has got 3 Grammy Nominations for his ‘UP’ score in Best Original Score for a Motion Picture, Best Instrumental Composition (Married Life) and Best Instrumental Arrangement (Up with End Credits) categories. Though I haven’t heard all the tracks nominated in these categories, I hope Michael Giacchino wins all the three Grammies.

‘UP’ is one of those special soundtracks I fell madly in love with instantly on very first listening. I could hum through every single cue of this film soundtrack, which is very rare in these days when film scores are becoming more and more abstract, strictly action based without any prominent themes. I strongly feel an animation film brings the best out of a composer as it is these films that require bold orchestral music with strong melodies. It is the dramatic score that makes the animated stories grounded and makes the audience instantly connect with the emotions of the characters no matter if that character is a piece of wood or a flesh and blood human being.

A.R.Rahman is not competing with Michael Giacchino as Grammies have a separate category for film soundtracks with songs.