My liking for this album has grown immensely since found on the net. Mind you, I'm waiting for the actual CD to release and will buy it as soon as I can. I can see why Karthik in his milliblog has gone ga-ga over the album and why the reviews so far have been stellar. This is one of the most complete albums by ARR in a while. There is style, attitude, melody, lushness, sweetness of sound, edginess, delicacy, intricacy, innovativeness, wide genres, great singing and lyrics. A friend pointed out that despite not using the most well known singers in bollywood other than Shreya Ghosal and ARR himself, the album still impresses. That's the power of ARR's music alone.
My concerns are that some of the numbers are quite situational and abstract with melodies that are not easily hummable and accessable (Rehna Tu, Dil Gira). Why was JTYJN so popular? Very accessable album with easy to remember melodies. Whether the hardcore junta takes to a soundtrack like this is to be seen. Of course, critics and music afficionados will drool. Despite my singing high praises, it's not a perfect album, nor should I expect it to be. I'm not warming up to Bandar yet and I wish there were more musical interludes (I'm being picky here). I also wish there was a pure instrumental in this album. If my preferred elements were in this album (which is unreasonable to expect), then this album would be in my top 5. For now, I won't rank it as it's still growing and sinking in. Only time will tell how this fares relatively to Rahman's greatest works, but will say with certain that this has HUGE potential to be one of my A list toppers down the road as it's already climbing. For now, I'm just enjoying the bliss that is Rahman's music.
