A R RAHMAN

[gobilalitha]

i am afraid whether I am stirring a hornet's nest. A R Rahman's fans pl excuse me. Some days back in Times of India readers were asked to vote whether ARR IS THE GREATEST MUSIC COMPOSER OF INDIA THE VOTING WAS yes 49% and no51% .i totally disagree. It should have been yes 0% and no100% NO DOUBT arr is an incomparable composer. HIS KNOWLEDGE OF CARNATIC, HINDUSTANI,WESTERN etc is astounding.But as far as film songs are concerned only chinnachinna asai has withstood the passage of time . His othersongs have given momentary pleasure, whereas songs by G.Ramanathan, K V MAHADEVAN, MSV , NAUSHAD, SHNAKAR JK, OPNayyar, vasant desai. music director of His H ighness Abdulla to mention a few have stayed in our HEARTS for more than 50 years AM i CORRECT? GOBILALITHA

[mohan]

Probably many of the people voting have not heard some of the other composers mentioned - ARR is the present day hero so it is not surprising people have voted for him.

For me the greatest composers are the trinity - MD, T & SS.

[gobilalitha]

The subject under discussion is whether ARR is the greatest composer(film music). So TRINITY, MD do not figure gOBILALITHA

[naarayanan]

Music directors should bother about this. Whether they want to remain in people's hearts or make money and fame catering to the prevalent trends and be forgotten in time.

And adding to the stalwarts list, How could one miss Ilaiyaraja?

[gobilalitha]

STALWARTS LIST is just a sample. of course Ilayaraja should have been mentioned gobilalitha

[Nick H]

It was a ridiculous question, so a ridiculous answer is expected. Of course he is not the greatest composer, not even of the modern day, let alone of all time, but any such question, which is going to attract his huge fan base, is going to get a huge 'yes' answer.

Most such questions, surveys, etc, are equally daft.

I doubt very much that he would have made this claim for himself. I'm told that he is quite a modest person. Although he is obviously pleased at the positive recognition he gets, I suspect that he would probably find stuff like this a little embarrassing.

[raghavt]

Comparisons are always bad or 'risky' ARR is a great composer, but as many would agree, he is not THE BEST composer of India. Academy Award is a feather in his cap, strangely enough for a not so good composition

There are many melodies and songs composed by him that has strong Carnatic base. By Carnatic base, I don't mean that it is a semi-classical song. The tune, the background score etc have strong carnatic alignment. Some examples - Chandana Tenralai in Tamil, Savariya Savariya - In Hindi. In fact Savariya Savariya (From the film Swadesh) is too good.

But, look at the compositions of other composers, they have numerable songs that are ever green. To me, RD Burman is the unquestionable ever green music composer in Hindi. If we talk about India as a whole, many share the top slot. So, we cannot say that ARR is THE ONLY master composer - My view

[SKA]

ARR is amazing no doubt but these sorts of questions have little significance.

whether any one person may be called the best Composer is a question in itself.
If I may dare to say ARR creates good music but bad trends. Especially his music for Semmozhi was quite inappropriate with so many elements of Rap and Rock. There is so much richness in Tamizh music itself that there is no need for borrowing from western cultures particularly in this context of Tamizh pride. I would extend the same logic to his composition of patriotic songs and the national song – Vande Mataram.

[ragam-talam]

Sorry, AR Rehman is the most hyped, least talented person who churns out insipid stuff.
I realise many of you may not agree, but this is my firmly held and considered opinion.

[raghavt]

Sorry, AR Rehman is the most hyped, least talented person who churns out insipid stuff.
I realise many of you may not agree, but this is my firmly held and considered opinion.

I somewhat agree to this

Thanks

[VK RAMAN]

We have in our city a similar individual, Rajan Zed - a punjabi hindu, who proclaims that he is a monk spreading hinduism and in fact he met with the US President and also did a invocation at the House of Representatives and Senate. These individuals know which button to press and get publicity and press coverage. I am inclined to endorse R-T's view point

[raghavt]

Some would say that I'm being egoistic. But this is the reality. To appreciate good things, we need the knowledge of good things. And music is not different. To appreicate good music, one requires knowledge of music. There is absolutely no need to know the intrcacies, but one should have a basic, but strong knowledge of the primary paramaters, The Shruti and the Tala. I'm sure that the group that has knowledge of these two, forms a very small subset of the greater population of people that includes both - knowledgable people and non-knowledgable people.

So, everything follows from this basic thing.

In TV I saw ARR sharing dias with BMK sir. I was thinking whether can he be considered equal to him??? You know there is a BMK and an ARR, I mean can they ever be equals??? And you know the answer that I would have...

[ragam-talam]

I've heard from reliable sources that ARR paid huge amounts of money to get the London symphony orchestra to play his music. Now we know how the likes of ARR promote themselves.

And we all know how rigged Academy awards are. I bet he had contacts in high places to help him get these awards.

To get an idea of how biased Academy awards are, years ago a mediocre movie called Forrest Gump got the best picture award - the same year when Shawshank Redemption had 7 nominations including for best movie, but did not get a single award.
Most movie buffs would know that Shawshank Redemption figures in several top-10 lists of movies ever made.

Jai ho indeed.

[VK RAMAN]

yella pugaLum irraivanukkE