Songs in my head

A.R. Rahman proves that he can do almost anything when it comes to music.

I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard a slightly different ARR in the soundtrack of Slumdog Millionaire. Well… it’s not really surprising… more like “dazzled”.

Like someone wrote in an online paper the other day, this is not his best work. But it’s one of his best shows of creativity, versatility and pure wickedness.

I thought Talvin Singh, Badmarsh and Shri, Nitin Sawhney were all good. They are. But ARR seems to be able to do what they do, as well as them or even better. And remember, those guys were all feted in the western music industry for amazing breakthroughs/magnum opus/next-best-things when ARR was making music for South Indian films.

My favourites include “O… Saya” (featuring UK-based Indian songstress Maya Arulpragasam a.k.a. MIA), “Riots”, “Mausam and Escape” (one of the best pieces I’ve listened to), and “Liquid Dance”. These tracks are a pastiche of hip hop, Indian classical and some really wonderful sound engineering – the attention to details are trademark ARR.

He’s also capable of doing “Ringa Ringa”, a old-fashioned hindi song which I couldn’t stand! “Jai Ho” sounds like a song out of a commercial Hindi flick, while “Millionaire” could quite possibly the theme music of the movie. There’s a song from Shah Rukh Khan’s Don, and another one by MIA (didn’t quite enjoy that).

Overall, a really creative piece of work, and I look forward to enjoying the movie.

And oh, AR Rahman has been nominated for 3 Oscars – one for original score, and two for original song (Jai Ho and O… Saya). For the best song, there’s a high chance of him winning it – there are only three songs (including his) in that category.