Tango for Taj

The title of the post is inspired by one of A. R. Rahman's latest instrumental compositions for his most recent album Rockstar. Some people have asserted that the maestro has lost his touch in the past few years. Some accusations have been floating around that excessive involvement of his younger subordinates has diluted some of the quality. And also that his music has become repetitive.

I believe that his compositions still consistently leave you wanting more of the same. How he pulls it off is a big mystery. While I personally still believe Thiruda Thiruda was one of his best compositions, my Rahman loyalty leaves me no doubt that whatever he touches turns to gold. But that is not saying much is it?

In the past, I have always found myself waiting with bated breath for Rahman's latest album. Personally though, his songs have always taken some time to grow. The key is that you have to keep listening to them till you fall completely in love with them. And you HAVE to believe it will happen. I did that with Boys. I did that with Blue. I did that with Yuvvraaj, Vinnaithaandi Varuvaaya, Raavan..... The list is endless.

In the past year or so however, I'll have to admit, my Rahman loyalty had faded. I had been distracted with some other music. (What with the likes of Amit Trivedi hitting the music scene, it was hard not to be. Please to forgive) So when a friend told me about Rockstar, while I spent no time deciding to download the music, the first hear left me with the "it's just aight" feeling. Maybe along with my loyalty, my memory of the approach towards his music had also faded. After about 2 weeks of Rockstar's dormant presence in my itunes library, I decided to adopt my publicized approach of playing the songs in repeat mode. It totally worked!!

I found myself deeply analyzing the excessive involvement of Mohit Chauhan in Rahman's troop. (He's a good singer and his nasal style probably adds value to some songs. But I find the excessive use of the nose a little annoying. Fine I'll take off 2 points out of 100 for Mohit Chauhan. The album still scores in Upper 80s, lower 90s.)

The most striking observation to me was Rahman's approach towards instrumental themes. Take Dichotomy of fame for instance, which has a very interesting Shehnai/Guitar fusion. The shehnai makes you think about a wedding and then the guitar which follows suddenly transports your imagination to a patio restaurant in Delhi with someone playing the guitar live! I don't know what to think anymore.

My most favorite piece in the entire album is the title of this post. I find Tango for Taj intoxicatingly brilliant! The generous use of the piano and the bandoneon puts you in a state of trance. It is a perfect example of a song where I wish he played that piece with the clapping sounds in the middle of the song a couple of times more. The song ended a little prematurely for me. The last time I felt so about an instrumental piece was the Duet theme. (Kadri Gopalnath is brilliant in that. But unfortunately none of Kadri's other songs seem to be even half as brilliant) I don't know how Rahman pulls off the instrumental so well. I guess since he knows all the right chords to strike, it can't be that hard......

A.R. Rahman! You'll always be my rockstar. And you used to be an iyer veetu pillai right? ;)