Rahman’s Sweep

If you’ve heard the music of ‘Slumdog Millionaire‘ you know that this is special. Starting with the first track, where the sound of drums segues seamlessly into the train tracks, this is elemental AR Rahman. From the time he transformed from composing advertising jingles way back in the late 80’s and was known to the advertising fraternity as ‘Dileep’, he has never looked back after ‘Roja‘ in 1992.

He oeuvre is magnificent, especially for someone who just turned 43 this Jan\’09. It is the kind of work that is hard to pigeonhole and slot and while he does have his signature bits, they never rankle. Shekhar Kapur once said that Rahman can make music out of sounds that people consider noise. If you’ve hear ‘Ayudha Ezhuthu’ you know exactly what he means. There is the sound of breaking bottles, doors being slammed and crowd noises, all woven into the kind of song that throbs with energy.

There’s also the realm of the unfamiliar. You may never like an A R Rahman song on the first hearing, probably because it sounds so unfamiliar. But give it time and it washes over you, never to release it’s grip. The last year has 6 releases from Rahman. It’s hard to be good and prolific. Somehow, he manages to make it happen.