A Classic. Review on Swades Songs

Year 2004 is flooded with ARR music and his albums are releasing one after the other continuously. Starting with moderate Lakeer, Magnum Opus Meenaxi, Quite Disappointing Yuva, Completely satisfactory Ayutha Ezuthu, “Somwhat” New, Melodious “Dil Ne Jise Apna Kaha” and now a Classic Swades. The trio Asutosh + ARR + Javed Akthar join hands together to recreate the magic of “Lagaan” in “Swades – We, the people”. The album has 7 songs and two instrumentals.

Yeh tara Who tara - Udit Narayanan, Master Vignesh, Baby Pooja and kids

The song has a very catchy tune and rhythm. Especially, the song starts with a catchy unique never heard before techno sound, which is looped in the background for the whole song. The chant of Udit, which starts the track, is good and used at many right places in the song. Obviously, Udit does a neat job. The flute piece by Navin in the second interlude, master Vignesh’s fresh voice (he has a good future), and sweet and cute voice of baby pooja are other goodies of this song. ARR has matured a lot in writing violin orchestrations and the first interlude is evident of it. While nearing the end, the song suddenly shifts to foot tapping folk beats and comes back to same techno sound with additional beats at the end. This is one of the songs in the album that everybody will like on first hearing.

Sawnwariya – Alka Yagnik

It is a haunting melody with great tune and singing. The song has good usage of bass guitar mildly in the background. The tune of the song varies continuously. The folk beats in the background are very subtle and pushes the words in the lyrics and voice to the fore. The first interlude has a good fusionh of percussion and bass guitar. Alka Yagnik is very comfortable in singing these kind of songs and she does it again with ease.

Yu hi chala chal – Hariharan, Udit Narayanan, Kailash Kher

A Hindustani hip-hop number. You will instantly shake your body for the beats and the tune. Hariharan sings for ARR after a long time. He has sung well and does magic with his voice at the start and at the end of the song but Udit takes over most of the middle part and you all know how he would have sung it. Kailash kher’s Hindustani alaps are nicely fused with techno beats. The song starts with a great string piece, and a lot of strings with different sounds are layered all through the song. The main beat and rhythm of the song is same as that of “Chinna siripuu podhumae” song, which composed for the tamil movie “Udhaya”. Anyway an enjoyable song.

Ahishta Ahishta – Udit Narayanan, Sadhana Sargam

It is a very slow sad melody but a good one. Hardly you can hear sound of instruments in the background except as rhythmic electronic sound. Udit and Sadhana elevate the song with their soothing and refreshing vocals and for singing with full emotions. The tune is heavily based on some classical raga. Though initially one may skip this song, this is an equally good number. The major highlight of the song is excellent performance on Santoor by Srinivasulu in the interludes. Thanks to ARR for using Sadhana Sargam for this song, she has some soul stirring melodies lining up this year.

Yeh Jo Des mera – A.R.Rahman

In the background we hear rhythmic beats along with a strange sound like group of people shouting “hoi” looped for the whole song. This song is also a melody with a nice tune. A short Shenoy piece looped in the background sounds different and good. ARR has well written the chorus part for this song. Unusually the choir has no digital mixing and the voices are synched naturally. At the end of the song, tabla beats appends to the background. Shenoy pieces performed by Madhu at the end sounds good with tabla beats. Singing wise with a different rustic voice ARR has improved a lot and his voice is so soothing in this song.

Pal Pal Bahari – Madhusree, Vijar Prakash, Asutosh Gowariker

This song is my pick of the album. I have been longing for this kind of song from ARR.

This song will sound great with the visuals for those feel it is too classy and a boring devotional number. Actually, it is for a musical stage drama based on “Sita calling Rama to rescue her from Ravana”. A true swadeshi number with best usage of traditional Indian instruments Tanpura, Veena, Flute, Tabla, Dolak, Pakhawaj, Khol and above all it is not stereo type devotional number it has ARR touch in it, the way he used the percussions in the song is evident of it. Asutosh gives vocals to Ravana character and there is no much of singing. Vijay sounds great in this song though his voice reminds many other singers. Undoubtedly the song belongs to Madhusree, she has put her heart and soul in this song. She does a fabulous job with her voice emoting longing, suffering, fear, and devotion in one song. Madhusree is yet another great find by ARR. The “After Rama arrives” episode of the song at the end has out of the world composition emoting the happiness of Rama’s arrival with great percussions by Sivamani and a complex orchestration with Dolak, flute, Veena and Chorus. And to my surprise the percussion arrangements which he used for a hip-hop song “If you wanna” from tamil movie “New” is used in this song. Anyway the percussions suit this song better.

Dekho Na – Udit Narayanan, Alka Yagnik

ARR has reused the tune of his song “Baba Kithchu tha” from tamil movie “Baba”. The song has a nice tune and again the singers make it sound even better. The song has a heavy bass, good job by Keith peters. Very simple tune and beats but ARR has improvised a lot by continuously layering different sounds and instruments one after the other. Except the tune the song is entirely different from the original and the new arrangements make is far better than the original. A techno melody.

Pal Pal Bahari - Flute: Navin

A really great instrumental. The flute replaces the vocals in the song. Navin’s flute does wonders in a purely classical number. If you notice, he has used three different types of flute for different feel of each character.

Yeh Jo Desh tera – Shenoy: Madhu

The strings of shenoy replace the vocal chords of A.R.Rahman. The instrumental is a nice fusion of tabla, guitar and shenoy. I haven’t heard much of Shenoy instrumentals before but it sounds great when it plays this tune.

Final note: All the songs in this album are melodies rich with Indian flavour. A truly Swadeshi album. Don’t compare this album to “Lagaan” even if one does that stupidity, I should say to them that this album is at par with the standards and quality of songs in “Lagaan”. The songs will definitely grow in you on 2 or 3 hearings. Go and grab the album if you a fan of good and fresh classical music.