With both the Sivaji film, and the Sivaji soundtrack, I can’t help but miss the days of Rajini/Illayaraja. Heck, even Rajini/Deva had good results. I remember how any Rajini film was gauranteed to have some great music, and in both music and film, it was a purely Tamil movie.
Chandramukhi, even, to some extent, carried the tradition. I was quite happy with the song, "Athithom" from Chandramukhi. However, with Sivaji, both ARR & Shankar have bucked to the trends. Certain scenes look like they were lifted from "Boys" instead of a Rajini film. Basically, Sivaji doesn’t feel like a Rajini film a lot of the time, and the music reflects this. Maybe I’m just grumpy or whatever, but I do kind of wish Rajini could return to his 90’s kind of films (I think it’s too much to ask him to return to his even earlier ones, likethe 80’s films).
Balelakka (Intro Song)
Seems like to a lot of people, the Rajini "intro" song means Rajini dancing and singing to fast heart pumping beats. I never really saw it that way though, I always thought it was about Rajini singing character-based and good-hearted lyrics over somewhat Tamil folkish accompaniement. I mean, event take ARR’s old song, "Oruvan Oruvan".
It wasn’t that fast at all, but it was still one of the best Rajini intro songs. Anways, for Balelakka, ARR gives basically some generic fast paced beats in the background as the accompaniement. SPB saves this song. The fact that he can single-handedly make songs good shows his skill.
He hadds so much personality to the song, listen when he starts his..."sadugudu sadugudu" fast singing. This song is a test of age for both Rajini and SPB. SPB takes the challenge easily, no one will think "oh he is definitely aging" when he does those fast passages . Rajini doesn’t do so well and his dance isn’t as smooth as his earlier films, but that doesn’t matter.
This song would have been a great song except for two things I hated. First, the "Balelakka" chorus is really annoying because of the voices that sing it. Also, the solo female vocalist that sings two lines in the song sounds really bad. It sounds like she is half crying, half-yelling, I have no idea why ARR wanted this, it ruins the song even though she only sings two lines.
Anyways, ARR gave us a great opening song in Muthu, "Oruvan Oruvan", but since then, he hasn’t been able to match it, although Padayappa’s was okay.
"Sahara/Sahana"
This is a good track. Udit Nayaran usually butchers the language but he is marginally better, and the Yesudas version is okay as well. Nothing much to say here, they are probably the higlight of the CD,
speaking musically.
Adhiradi &
Style*
These are barely worth commenting on. Tamil rap, Blaaze, ugh. These are not Rajini songs, they sound like something from "Boys". I could barely listen to them, and I skip them whenever I happen to be listening to the CD. ARR, I don’t understand how the same composer who gave us "Oruvan Oruvan" can release this kind of stuff in a Rajini film.
There’s really nothing else notable in the soundtrack. This CD is such a let down after so much hype. I don’t know what’s wrong with ARR, he gave so many AMAZING pieces of music to us throughout the years, and he has given Rajini some good hits too, so what is with this Sivaji soundtrack? I wonder how much of it is ARR’s fault and how much is Shankar’s fault.
Conclusion
This is not a great effort from ARR, and definitely not worth the hype of the ARR-Shankar-Rajini combo. I say bring back Illayaraja. He has given hit after hit for so many Rajini films, and they remain some of the best songs. Even an old song like "Pothuvaga En Manasu" still holds up and was used shortly in the movie Muthu. Will anyone really remember "Baleilakka" in a few years? They would remember "Oruvan" of course, because that song suited Rajini very well.
Rajini is one of the old generation, a purely Tamil actor. Although we’ll never see him probably go back to when he was truly a great actor, I thought at least we’d still have him as his 90’s "super-star" persona. The guy you root for, hero of the Tamil masses. If I wanted to hear some kids rapping I’d watch MTV. What a disappointment.