Uyirodu Uyiraaga

Vidyasagar

Lyrics:

Easwaran Hariharan's Thumbs Up Rating: Uyirodu Uyiraaga, is another successful album from immensely talented and still vastly underrated MD Vidyasagar.  There are six songs in this soundtrack, all of them are unique and great to listen to.

Soundtrack starts with I Love You by K.K. and new singer Nandhini.  It is a usual Vidyasagar dance number, - catchy tune and great beats.   Lyrics are also very smartly written.  Overall, this song is a sure chart topper, targeted toward young listeners.

Second song, Nothing, is another dance number, inspired by Take it easy from Kadhalan.  Harini, another talented singer, shows her promise with the usual tamilish lyrics dominating the song.  This song is already started appearing in the top 10 charts.

With two good dance numbers to start with, it is time to for some melodious numbers, and as expected third song Anbe Anbe, is a soft melody, with Hariharan and Chitra singing at their best. Vidyasagar usually gives one or two great melody numbers in each of his albums like Priyam Priyam (Priyam), Malare Mounamaa? (Karna) and recently Vaa Sakhi (Arasiyal). This song deserves to be mentioned along with these great songs. It is a kind of song, you want to sing along with and sounds equally great with ear phones.

Poovukkellam, next song starts with a great guitar piece and maintains that quality throughout the song.  Vidyasagar has tried some new music patterns in the interludes, and shows that why he is one of the talented musicians in Tamil Film Music today.  A great song to hum and to enjoy; it will end up as one of the very unique songs in TFM history.  Lyrics are also great.

Next song, Vanna kiLi, starts as a classical based song, turns mid-way and ends as a modern song.  Again, Vidyasagar's interlude music is great.   He tries new age music in the interludes and concludes the song in great fashion.   This song may not be a great, hummable number, but nevertheless another immensely enjoyable song.

Last one, Nadhi Yenge, looks like a sad song sung by Ganshyam Vaswani in an atrocious tamil accent.  One can not miss again Vidyasagar trying some unique music pieces in the interludes, which goes great with the song.

Overall, a great soundtrack from Vidyasagar after the successful Arasiyal, and he proves once again that he has everything to dominate TFM with his unique and innovative music.  I bought this CD for Jeans, and was happy to get a Vidyasagar film along with that.   After hearing both, I may want to feel the other way around.

Rating 9.0 out 10.0 and a big thumbs up!

Easwaran Hariharan

Sandya's Thumbs Up Rating: It is truly a pity that a music director of Vidyasagar's calibre cannot get past the Tamil Film Music's glass ceiling.  With his return in 1994 into Tamil cine field with Jaihindh, Vidyasagar has matured into a great musician that enjoyable songs like Aye Shabba (Karna), Adi Aathi (Pasum Ponn) or Vaaraai En Thozhiye (Arasiyal) have become part of the Vidyasagar album 'staple diet.'  It is rather unfortunate that such a talented musician has yet to win a single prestigious award in Tamilnadu, neither for his melodious compositions nor for his ability to provide never-ending listening pleasure to Tamil film music fans.  Hopefully 1998 will carry Vidyasagar to greater heights where he might sign some films that actually do well at the box office and give him the needed and deserved recognition.  I, for one, wish him plenty of luck for 1998, as the beginning with Uyirodu Uyiraaga looks incredibly impressive.

Like Subash, Shengotai and Arasiyal, to name a few, the Uyirodu Uyiraaga soundtrack is an excellent blend of masala and melody music.  With the bhangra beat background, Nandhini appears to have truly enjoyed herself singing I Love You with K.K.  Surely, everyone will go 'kikklidhaakka' for this song soon.  Despite what the world might say, Vairamuthu still impresses people who are happy with simple things in life, aka lyrics like Appa sattai podaavittaal magal-aai irundhu yenna payan?  Aadai meedhu sindhaamal Ice Cream yenna payan.. NOTHING!.. Actually, Nothing is a very interesting lift from Muththamma Muththamma from Super Police, but you have to give to Harini.  She makes anything and everything sound good these days!.. Kaattula mazhai!..

I continue to be reminded of Bhoomiye from Shengottai, when I listen to Anbe Anbe by Hariharan and Chitra.  Both songs have an incredibly soothing effect on the listener, a goal which Vidyasagar seems to be achieving regularly these days.  Thought Udith Narayan was bad with Tamil pronunciation, listen to Mr. Ganshyam Vaswani in Nadhi Yenge, you will change your mind.   (Maybe we can mail him 'tamil lessons' as a gift certificate for Tamil New Year's Day :-)   Which leaves us with a slow and melodious number in Poovukkellaam with K.K. and Srinivas taking the cake with their excellent vocals and Harini providing the thakka thikku thaa thaa during one of the interludes.  Vanna KiLi vaguely resembles MaNamagale from Devar Magan in parts but makes a drastic Devadas-type turn, which makes it less likeable. 

I was lucky to have heard the songs earlier on audio tape that I grabbed the first opportunity to buy the Jeans-Uyirodu Uyiraaga CD combination, knowing the high quality of music I would be listening to.  These kind of CD combinations are rare these days, that's for sure!

For new director Sushma's sake, for Ajeethkumar's (bad slump!) sake and above all, for Vidyasagar's melodious and enjoyable music's sake, Uyirodu Uyiraaga should enjoy all the merits of box office success when it releases this year.

Sandya

Original Photograph (Uyirodu Uyiraaga): Audio cassette cover.
Photograph scanned/restored by: Sandya
Photograph effects by: Krishna