Movie: Racegurram - రేస్ గుర్రం
Music: S.S.Thaman
Director: Surendar Reddy
Producer(s): Nallamalapu Srinivas (Bujji) and Dr. Venkateswara Rao
Cast: Allu Arjun, Shruti Haasan, Saloni Aswani and Shaam
Allu Arjun's latest offering Racegurram is said to be a youthful romantic action thriller. Surendar reddy first time working with Allu Arjun has roped in Thaman in music department.Shruti Haasan is female lead. Initially it was thought Samantha would be the female lead. This movie audio release was made simple and delayed due to Pawan kalyan's political debut.
Surendar reddy and Allu Arjun are known for being stylish in their presentations. So they teaming up and the teasers released has set huge expectations on the movie. Thaman is working for the first time with Allu Arjun. Thaman worked earlier with Surendar, this would be their second movie. Thaman's last movie that released was Masala, This shows there has been some gap for Thaman who was busy otherwise scoring movies left and right. For Charan though Yevadu released in January, the music was released long back.
This movie has total 6 songs, one is title song of course. The lyrics department has a surprise name as Varikuppala Yadagiri who is known for his songs in Erra Sainyam and Veera Telangana. He is also a singer, so lent his voice for a song. Another surprise is Usha Uthup who featured in Title song.
Coming to music, in general I have been complaining about Thaman's music regarding the following.
1. His music is repetitive, he copies music from others.
2. He uses wrong tunes for situations due to which the tune and mood are out of sync. 3. His music is perfectly within his template doesn't offer variety.
4. Most of the time, we cannot hear any of his singers original voice - he changes the voice sometimes so badly that it irritates listeners.
5. His music is very loud that singers voice is lost most of the times.
6. All songs sound same with his repetitive pattern of beats/rhythm.
7. Most of his songs are highly pitched half way thru the song.
8. His melodies doesn't sound like melody due to his style of orchestration, rhythm, choice of tunes, singers voice manipulation.
Apart from these issues which I don't have to repeat again, I will try to see whether Thaman offered anything different this time.
1. "Boochade Boochade"
Lyrics: Chandrabose
Singer(s): Shreya Ghoshal, Rahul Nambiar, Naveen Madhav
This is typical Thaman to start an album. He always make listeners to remember his old songs to just introduce himself. This song is perfect example of it. If you feel you are listening for first time, then you really don't know about Thaman or hearing him for the first time for which he might feel sorry for that. I guess he will keep doing that until entire Telugu audience is familiar about his music. The way the singer sings the song also exactly Same to Same. Chethade, Gilletode, Tegistaade, all the same style. No wonder we call him S(Same) S(Song) Thaman. The interludes, the beats all perfectly same - reused, rehashed put in a new wrap and is called a new song. There are many shades of his earlier songs done quite differently. This makes his life easy though :) Chandrabose is irrelevant here in this song.
2. "Sweety"
Lyrics: Varikuppala Yadagiri
Singer(s): Siddharth Mahadevan, Rabbit Mac
This song for a second appears better, but when the singer says freedom pondave, its again Same Song style. This doesn't have his template beats, but the singing style of singers doesn't make it a different kind of song. Rap in between is nothing different. Having said that this is perfect example of Thaman's trendy, youthful, new generation music for which people rave about him and are behind him.
3. "Cinema Choopista Mava"
Varikuppala Yadagiri
Singer(s): Simha, Varikuppala Yadagiri
The song starts with an irritating singing style and then Thaman becomes himself. His famous dappulu are back. This song offers nothing new everything same to same. His alteration of singer voice is just irritating and makes singing so reckless. Not sure why he does that to a song. The lyricist has written perfect mass song, but Thaman doesn't add any value to the song. There is absolutely no variety in this song.
4. "Gala Gala"
Lyrics: Rehaman
Singer(s): Dinesh Kanagaratnam, Megha
Heavily inspired by ARR songs. Thaman doesn't feel shy of copying himself or others. Not sure how movie makers are accepting and paying for music that is already made. Are they so naive or they don't care that no one complains and keep accepting what ever they give? Surprising to see so many people tweeting Thaman that the music is great for a song that is already made by someone and all Thaman has to do is to present in a different way. The moment its remade, there is nothing to write about this song.
5. "Down Down"
Lyrics: Viswa
Singer(s): S. Thaman, Shruti Haasan
This song is perfect play for any RJ/DJ in any dance party. Unfortunately for Thaman its everyone's unanimous guess about the original song. So if you guess it means you listen to same music that Thaman also listens. Shruti Haasan lends her voice for this song along with Thaman. Being a dancer this song will help Bunny a lot or we can say it other way. This is perfect song for onscreen. The tunes, the beats are heard in any dance party, so Thaman has nothing to do in this song either other than singing the song along with Shruti Haasan.
6. "Race Gurram"
Lyrics: Varikuppala Yadagiri
Singer(s): Usha Uthup, M. M. Manasi, M. M. Monisha
Thaman tries to be different in this song, but his dappulu and repeated tune doesn't allow to. This song has energy, pace, race for the horse that can dance. He added Usha Uthup to the song, but she is completely lost as told in one of the issues of Thaman. She didn't sound herself at all. Whatever the song has the energy, beats which Bunny needs and is short song in entire album.
Pick(s) of the album: Race gurram, Sweety
Thaman said he had completed composing the songs in January itself. Now we know why, 3 songs copied/inspired the rest typical template music so why does he need time to make them? The definition of successful music has changed, so if fans like the songs, I guess the album is successful. But music wise, not required to say again and again. Songs for Bunny and they are really for Bunny and his fans. Thaman still has his regular issues but who cares as long as movie is successful.
