Starring – Jeeva, Gajala // Direction: Ameer
Listen to Raam @ Raaga.
Raam – Official Website (Flash required)

Jeeva, true to his name, is defying an early death to his career and making a comeback with this movie. And maybe a weird hairdo is what Jeeva needs now to salvage his career(!). Of course, his Dad, Super Good Choudhary also has something to do with this, but atleast this time father/son picked a director with atleast one hit to his credit. Raam will be former Bala assistant, Ameer’s second venture after Mounam Pesiyadhae. And he has decided to stick with Yuvan Shankar Raja for the music. Apparently the music is hot in Madras, atleast according to Sify.com

Aaraariraaro – KJ Yesudas

The song starts off with a flute, chants and synths leading into a typical Yuvan rhythm we’ve become used to. But when Yesudas begins to sing Aaraariraaro, it suddenly reeks Ilaiyaraaja. Not vintage Ilaiyaraja, but like one of those latter-day tunes he dished out occasionally for those P.Vasu types. Some would still find the song haunting, but it did nothing for me. Minus all the forced synth sounds, it ended up being a very normal song. Not the best “lullaby” song I’ve heard. And Sify.com had the balls to compare this with Amma Endru from Mannan. Wha…?!! {3.5/10}

Boom Boom – Yuvan Shankar Raja, Jyotsna, Premji, Tippu

A very familiar synth melody starts off this song soon followed by some top-of-the-line catchy gibberish sung by Yuvan(or is that Premji?). But then, gibberish is the in thing these days, so why not? After the chorus singers pile on the gibberish for some more time, Tippu begins singing about Britney Spears and I swear I heard Norah Jones in there too. But whatever Tippu sang triggers off a brief interlude, upon which Malayalam import Jyotsna enters the fray, strangely sounding like a modern-day LR Eswari. And even though there is only female voice mentioned in the credits, I could swear it was another girl singing the Kadal Thaandum Nadhigal Naangal part, which actually sounded a lot more like the Mallu Jyotsna. So was the first voice just another version of Jyotsna’s voice after being extracted through a software plugin? Or maybe Premji is actually a typo for Premaji. I was still pondering this, when the song suddenly took on some distorted Bhangra style notes and ended. So there’s the song for you. Confusing as shit, if you start to think about singers or lyrics, but catchy overall. Will soon be playing on every stereo in Madras until it dies a deserved death 6 months from now. {4/10} for now.

Manidhan Solgindra – KJ Yesudas, Vijay Yesudas, Ranjith

The opening lines Manidhan Solgindra Kaayangal Enna? Bramman Undaakkum Maayangal Enna? establishes the sober mood of this song. The chendai is suddenly fashionable these days and alongwith the veenai, Yuvan starts off a nice sounding interlude finished off by the chanting of the Jnaana Karma Sanyasa Yoga from the Gita. The song has only one charanam but with the long drawn out interludes & music it stretches out to 4:39. As for the song itself, I still have mixed feelings about it now. I’m not sure how original sounding it was. Plus my silly self had to immediately draw comparisons with an earlier Yuvan composition from Nanda, Or Aayiram Yaanai, which I thought was very good. Ah well, still the best in the album until this point. {4.5/10}.

Nizhalinai Nijam – KJ Yesudas, Yuvan Shankar Raja

Bad sounding, loud synths start off this song but quickly gets into the pallavi where Yesudas, again, starts singing a nursery rhyme type melody and Yuvan follows it up with some Rahman type yodeling. The song doesn’t get anywhere in the remaining 4 odd minutes and continues to disappoint. {3.5/10}

Vidigindra Pozhudhu – Madhumita

Madhumita’s turn to sing the female version of the previous song. Not sure if it made a difference. And not sure why anybody thought this song deserved to have two versions. {3.5/10}

Yaaro Arivaal – Madhu Balakrishna

Madhu Balakrishnan’s voice I love. It’s got a certain quality that was missing from even Yesudas until this point in the album. And how sad is that?! Minimalistic music fills in the track for sometime until some wavy lead synths combined with almost a full-blown Panchavadyam and some heavy brass finish off the song. Short track, but leaves an impact. {5/10}