Aasa aasa’s unconventional use of Kannan’s vocals is pretty cool, as is the format-breaking tune. With a Celtic touch, the Simbu-Devi Sri Prasad sung duet is a jolly good listen, including that crow’y chorus! Sunitha Sarathy’s Kooda kooda works not so much for the tune as much for the retro-fused orchestration that James confidently weaves in. Naan pogiren is a sure-fire melody that, with SPB and Chitra’s vocals makes it even better. The title song with its Tamil rock ambitions is a nifty attempt and with Ranjith singing it, sure makes a mark. Effectively trendy endeavor from composer James Vasanthan.

Keywords: Sibiraj, Prasanna, SP Balasubramaniam, Ramya Rai, Ragini, James Vasanthan, James Vasandhan, Nanayam

Appan policeda is banal, while Uyirodu uyiril is pleasant enough, but is something Vidyasagar would’ve composed 10 years ago. Belly Raj and Padmanabhan gel amazingly well with the chorus, in the gentle, friendship track, Gangai nadhi. Much like Ilayaraja’s Amma endrazhaikkadha and Rahman’s Uyirum neeye, James gets his own memorable amma-sentiment song in Thaaye thaaye that, with only mild orchestration, rides beautifully on Srinivasan’s vocals. The best however is Sharreth and Priya Hemesh’s duet Kodi kodi aasaigal – a convincing melody packaged with scintillating backgrounds that really showcases the composer’s creativity! Highly recommended, at least for the last 3 songs!

Keywords: James Vasandhan, Kaavalar Kudiyiruppu, Anis Thejaswar, Sonu, Sharan

Ninnalanni has all things going for it – a pleasant and melodious tune, a catchy chorus and Rahul Nambiar’s serene vocals, but this one, along with Shweta Pandit’s Vade navadu, though perfectly functional, are too mired in the standard new-age Telugu filmy sound. Hariharan’s title song too is a bit trite, despite trying hard with pleasing sounds. Lifey oka Saturday is considerably better as it rolls out a catchy, attitude-loaded fusion track, but Hey hey everybody goes overboard with the feel and gets annoying. After making a mark in Prayanam, Mahesh Shankar’s music in Inkosari falls significantly and disappointingly short.

Keywords: Mahesh Shankar, Raja, Manjari Fadnis, Richa Pallod

Vaalu paiyane is something Imman churns out in his sleep and puts us into sleep, while Poochandi’s Junkyard version with the title phrase sounds considerably better. With its subtle Middle Eastern sounding base, Aruvi pola is a reasonably interesting number and the Imman-sung Ragala kaara maamanaaru has a groovy and addictive structure and tune! The soundtrack’s clear winner is the hyper-infectious Ading ading; Imman and Rita sing this joyous track with such verve that it’s impossible not to tap your feet along! As if to make up for his past debacles, composer Imman evolves and show promise, if only half-heartedly.

Keywords: Sandhya, D.Imman, Odippolama

Rahat is getting typecast and it is clear from the maha-predictable forced-pleasantness of Rishte naate. Gale lag ja works marginally, only because of Javed Ali, but Paisa (by RDB), with its faux-coolness is pretty sad! The calypso genre explored by Pritam in Baamulaiza is mindless and scatterbrained, despite 3 vocalists, while the folk-fusion attempted in Hotty naughty is straight out of Pritam’s last year stock. The title song (by Ad Boys) too is such a stale patchy effort that it loses steam even midway! De dana dhan’s soundtrack is worse than Ajab prem…; the law of diminishing returns finally catches up with Pritam, this year.

Keywords: Akshay Kumar, Katrina Kaif, Sunil Shetty, Paresh Rawal, Neha Dhupia, Sameera Reddy, Pritam

Nee otha sollu is a rather pedestrian duet despite the forced folk’ish sweetness Vijay adds to it, while the kids’ chorus in Guju guju wears out after the mild interest in the beginning. After winning over his home state Vineeth Sreenivasan crosses over to Tamil with a predictable pathos melody, Vadakka therka. Malgudi Subha’s stagey Kel taana rangubhai, Vijay’s own Paalayankottai and the medley-styled Yethanayo kadha undu all fall flat with zero impact. Veera Shankar’s 3 folk utterances don’t help either. Vijay wasn’t expected to produce a blockbuster, but this soundtrack is disappointing given the strides he had taken recently.

Keywords: Jai, Vijay Antony, Aval peyar tamizharasi

Kadavul paarpadhillai’s Yuvan-like influences do very little to help the song – it’s still rough around the edges, while Mazhaiya nee is an equally amateurish kuthu number. Nee irukkum is where the massive Harris Jeyaraj influence starts – this one’s average, but the last 2 compositions thankfully make the cut, again with a pronounced Harris Jeyaraj inspiration; Kaagidham kaatril’s has a hummable melody, is orchestrated well, and is sung beautifully by Harish Raghavendra and Mahati, while Chinmayi’s whisper-style singing adds a fabulous dimension to Vizhiyai vizhiyai. Debutant composer Vikram Varman shows promise in at least 2 tracks in Ariyaan’s soundtrack.

Keywords: Vikram Varman, Aariyaan

Baba Sehgal and the slow, rhythmic arrangements of Mr. Perfect are enticing, but both get boring very soon. Uppenantha has KK trying his best to salvage a predictable-at-every-turn tune, while Baby he loves you is too tame to even comment. Ringa ringa is foot-tapping, with what one expects from a made-for-front-bencher item number and Kunal Ganjawala adds extra feeling to do what he can to yet another supposed-soulful Karige loga. The techno sound in My love is gone is so last year. It could be massive expectations…what else could explain the dud that Devi Sri Prasad produces for Aarya 2?

Keywords: Allu Arjun, Navadeep, Kajal Agarwal, Shraddha Das, Devi Sri Prasad

NW1W. Imman falls further.

Sainya Ve & Milke yun laga: Jail (Hindi OST), Toshi-Sharib
Toshi-Sharib’s standard, formulaic tunes continue to impress and save Madhur’s latest film’s soundtrack. Sainya ve, despite that jaded sufi sound is mighty addictive, while Sharib’s vocals are the surprise package of Milke yun laga.

Fitoor & Mai ni meriye: Fitoor (Indipop), Mohit Chauhan
Fitoor is a beautiful album – very nuanced and heartfelt. While all the songs uniformly help in creating a unified mood for the album, the title song and the very-Pahadi Mai ni meriye are clear stand-outs. The latter has some charming, colloquial lyrics that are worth enjoying in each listen.

Vaanam pudhidhu: Ilamai Idho Idho (Tamil OST), Vidyasagar
Vidyasagar’s trademark melody with minimal orchestral intrusions during the verses..in a line like ‘Adikkadi nerum maranam pudhidhu’ (’Dying often feels new’ – due to the fact that I’ve fallen in love…just to add context)

Rasiya & Ali maula: Kurbaan (Hindi OST), Salim Sulaiman
Rasiya is delightful, period! I was having a discussion with one of the visitors of Milliblog on which raag this is based on – she demonstrated it to be the carnatic raag, Pantuvarali. I started with that point but started humming Ilayaraja’s Raajapaarvai number, Andhi Mazhai (based on Vasantha, and which I mistakenly assumed as Amirthavarshini) as Rasiya progressed. I warmed up to Ali maula the moment it had the word Parvar digaar…don’t ask me why…I love the sound of that word. Came to know via twitter that it means ‘Almighty’…perfect meaning. Lovely song that spells hope.

Vaada vinmele: Appavi (Tamil OST), Joshua Sridhar
This is a rather bizarre addition – as a song, Vaada vinmele is a plain and predictable massy number and as I had mentioned in the review, something that the younger crop of Tamil stars would love as their bombastic intro song. But composer Joshua Sridhar, after a spate of Kannada soundtracks, uses simple, but catchy hooks all over to make this a winner.

Gundello: Ek Niranjan (Telugu OST), Manisharma
Typical Manisharma, but also holds some shades of Gurukiran’s style adopted in Mangamma from Maharadhi! The smooth connection with the classical piece, Entharo, makes it even easier to like this track.

Sabse peeche: Aao wish karein (Hindi OST), Ankur Tewari
Aao wish karein the surprise soundtrack in recent times…I mean who in their right mind would want to listen to anything with Aftab Shivdasani in it? But composer Ankur Tewari proves us wrong, that too with a tune that he composed way back in 2002, used it first in Let’s Enjoy in 2004 with Mohit Chauhan singing it. Now, Kunal Ganjawala adds a groovy layer to the same track and all its variants too have been treated really well!

Starstruck, Bodies, You know me: Reality killed the video star, Robbie Williams
Robbie Williams is back, well…not with a bang, but with a fairly good album. He sounds less confident compared to his earlier albums, but also has gone decidedly more pop’ish…as if he wasn’t already! Some of the lyrics in this album is quite atrocious…like ‘a knife cutting into vaseline…’ or something along those lines…!

She wolf: She wolf, Shakira
So, this song that I couldn’t get outta my head was by Shakira. The trouble with FM stations is that the RJs talk excessively and the only thing they don’t say is the name of the artist or the album when you expect them to, the most. Nice, catchy song, but the album is pretty average stuff.

Hey ariba: Raydel
This is clearly a blast from the past and I was subconsciously forced to add it to my weekly play-list. Raydel is a one-hit wonder and I discovered this mindbogglingly catchy dance track on the French music channel MCM, back when I was in Delhi. If this can’t uplift your mood, perhaps nothing else can