Aagadu Audio Review

Movie: Aagadu ( ఆగడు )
Music: SS Thaman
Director:  Sreenu Vytla
Producer(s): Ram Achanta, Gopichand Achanta and Anil Sunkara on 14 Reels Entertainment banner
Cast: Mahesh Babu, Tamanna, Shruti Haasan, Rajendra Prasad

After Dookudu, another combination from Mahesh Babu and Srinu Vytla. Though 1 Nenokkadine was critically acclaimed, Mahesh didnt taste success at the box office. There are very high expectations on this combination of Vytla and Mahesh Babu. Tamanna is making her debut against Mahesh Babu. There were many names that came out to be as lead pair with Mahesh in the likes of Samantha, Deepika Padukone, Sonam kapoor, ShrutiHaasan and finally Vytla settled with Tamanna. The milky beauty's tweets would shows her excitement being part of the team.

14 reels second movie with Vytla and third movie with Mahesh, his third movie as cop has set the bar very high for this movie. On flip side, Kona venkat getting separated from Vytla's team and Prakash raj's issues with Agadu team finally settled down as creating differences between them. If the movie gets success, these issues wont be seen altogather, but if the result is other wise, they get magnified.

Coming to music department, Thaman has a great achievement for his life doing this prestigious film as his 50th movie as music director. Thaman inspite of all criticism and issues he came long way all still appears as mystery. They way he never bothered what criticism he is getting and stuck to his template and became successful is a great case study for all music director wannabe's. No matter his haters number increases, he keeps getting prestigious projects. Congrats to Thaman for all his success commercially and hope he changes and becomes successful with his music too. Hope that day is not far away.

Lyrics for this movie is shared between Bhaskarabhatla, who is known for mass songs, and Srimani who got success with one song, but yet to prove a lot. His other movies songs were not to upto the mark. This album has 5 songs and a theme of the movie with dialogs of Mahesh Babu and BGM by Thaman. Lets get into the songs.

Srinu Vytla said in the audio launch that Thaman had worked hard for more than an year to get the songs of the movie. Lets see how much of his hard work really made mark and how much is wasted.

1. Aagadu ( Title Song )

Singer(s): Shankar Mahadevan

Lyrics: Srimani

Srimani told he worked hard and was lucky enough to get this song. The theme music with chorus shouting "Hey" was repeated non-stop during audio launch and after some time it appeared so loud/noisy, that it wasn't pleasant any more. The song starts with a typical template Thaman guitar and thousand times heard beats, and Shankar high energetic, high voltage voice that sounds like "భూకంపనుడు ( Shankar swallows the "Du") భూవిద్వేషకుడు కబళించే దాక ఆగడు" and the next line goes as "అణు ధార్మికుడు రణ ప్రేమికుడు ఆణి చేసే దాక ఆగడు". Srimani should know that to write a powerful song, words need not be complex and powerful without any meaning. Simple words with powerful meaning makes powerful song. The way words are trimmed, enlarged, transformed to Hindi and English shows that he didn't find words for the tune and changed gears. An example is "నేను ఉండే నగర్ నగర్ మే షహర్ షహర్ మే చెడుని వధిస్తాలె ". Also something like "టెరా బైట్ హింసని జీరో సైజు కే కంప్రేస్స్ చేసేలా aagadu" Some kind of funny expression that is. Poetry at an extreme ends. There is no correlation of why chorus sings "Tu Jahaan Bhi chale" to what Srimani wrote in song. When there is no meaning, it just made for some catchy phrases so that people can just hum it. Thaman as usual his beats and chorus are not pleasant at all. He also got the concept of powerful song as being loud and noisy. The noise can be on screen and in the theatre but not in the song. If it is too noisy, then once cannot listen again and again. Even Shankar Mahadevan struggled ending and also starting the stanza's. Never see such issues with Shankar Mahadevan. Thats shows the composing issues that Thaman had, One music director can never give tough time to singers, that too Shankar Mahadevan types who easily sings any pitch, any pace. Overall it might appear a powerful title song for all its content, pave, voltage but its non-sense repetitive noise as it appears. Hope Vytla and Mahesh bring some content on screen for fans. For music lovers its not pleasant song.

2. Aaja Sarojaa

Singer(s): Rahul Nambiyar

Lyrics: Bhaskarabhatla

Thaman and Bhaskarabhatla claimed that this is their favorite song. A melody. Thaman starts this song with a nice melody, but not sure why he shifts gears "paatalanni maripistunnave", and then completely changes the mood of the song when "aaja saroja" starts. This I feel did not go well and is a setback for this song. He should have let the song go freely with a single mood and tune. Then comes the horribly part in terms of auto tune of the voice. Why he is so passionate of changing the voice of singer. He should remember that the song strength is singer's voice and tinkering that ruins a song. Also the chorus is absolutely sarcastic and the singer too was over expressive changing the song to lowest setback. This is a new definition of melody as interludes are loud and noisy. In one song we can hear so many flavors that the song is lost somewhere even before the interludes start. This song has some good parts/flashes that unfortunately doesn't appear too long. One more song that didnt reach the expectations set by the makers. Having said that I feel I am not on same page of what they feel when they say worked hard, its their favorite.

3. Bhel Poori

Singer(s): Rahul Nambiyar, M.M.Maanasi

Lyrics: Bhaskarabhatla

Thaman has his template beats that means this song is a mass song and doesnt need much attention for an off screen listening. Bhaskarbhatla lives to his trademark mass song writer using all words that is used in this song. The way Bhel is sung, its like hitting some one :) This song is perfect template song of Thaman. Mixes many sounds sorry beats, instruments, his favorite auto tuning in between. Having said this, the song reminds some other songs. Vytla said he said many times he didnt like the tune to Thaman so he got good tunes. His movies never had a great music and when he asked for changes we can expect what he might have asked.

4. Junction Lo

Singer(s): Shruti Haasan, Sooraj Santosh

Lyrics: Bhaskarabhatla

When a song starts with auto tuning a singer's voice, then we know Thaman has nothing much to offer. And he proves the same when singer says Junction Lo and the beats attach to the song. This is out and out mass song, with only saving grace is Shruti Haasan lending voice. Ths song is pretty ordinary and all tuned for onscreen shaking of Shruti Haasan with Mahesh babu. Strictly for fans and in theater. Bhaskarabhatla has nothing to offer in this complete mass song.

5. Naari Naari

Singer(s): Thaman, Divya

Lyrics: Bhaskarabhatla

Thaman and Divya sing this routine template song from Thaman. Thaman added some strange accent that didn't go well. However this song is foot tapping and energetic. Thaman could have provided some variance in template beats and Divya better voice expressions. This could have made this song more listenable. This time interludes are different, but the shoutings are same. This song leaves a mixed feeling as Thaman is not able to go beyond the limits he set to himself. Somehow this song at times appears better at times noisy. 

6. Theme of Aagadu

Singer(s): Thaman, Mahesh Babu, Srinu Vytla

Lyrics: NA

Mahesh babu's dialogs added with Music. The title song tune is added in different forms, but both dialogs and the tune never matched so they sound alien towards each other. Not sure why they had to do this. This is neither theme music nor just dialogs. Could have done better and with care.

Pick(s) of the album: Tough Choice..

The songs doesn't offer any variety, didn't offer any excitement, didn't appeal. Lyrics also doesn't contain wow factor. This will be one more album that passes by for Thaman and adds to his movie count. Srinu Vytla heavily dependent on comedy, but never had great music in his movies, so for him it doesn't matter. Fans always supported Thaman earlier be it Dookudu or Businessman, so they will support this album. For them it is a genuine hit album. If the movie is hit, the songs will be chart toppers anyways. So everyone except music lovers will have issues with this album. As usual, people feel that my reviews are negative for Thaman, but I cant help it. After 50 movies of Thaman, I still cant find my issues resolved :( :(