And the Award Goes to..

Ilaiyaraaja’s score for ‘Naan Kadavul’ would definitely sound divine if heard as a standalone piece of music, but despite evoking apt emotions, it ended up sounding loud in the film. With ‘Eeram’ Thaman.S has finally arrived. Thaman has perfectly understood the film’s requirements and has given a score that helps to enhance the gloom, intrigue, thrill and eeriness in the visuals. The 13B score by Tubby and Parik is too loud to be called even average but still wanted to nominate to know how many actually liked this kind of loud scoring for a thriller. Shruthi Hassan managed to not draw any attention to her edgy Rock music score in “Unnai Pol Oruvan” and for a starter that is quite an achievement. Karthik Raaja’s orchestral riffs of tension and suspense, though doesn’t lift up the dull film, is apt in ‘Achamundu Achamundu’. I nominated James Vasanthan’s score for ‘Pasanga’, for no particular reason. I liked the film and liked music cues in some of the scenes which I don’t exactly remember now. The music just flows smoothly with the tone of the film, neither too subtle, nor so overpowering. It is important to note that James didn’t resort to any childish stock sound bytes for comedy scenes involving children. I haven’t seen Yogi yet.

My Favorite – Thaman.S for Eeram

Poll Result



Ilaiyaraaja is at his usual best in ‘Paa’. The enchanting violin theme of Auro needs no introduction. The chirpiness, the sarcasm and witty charm of Auro is embodied in the way Raaja plays the theme with playful staccato pauses between notes and phrases of the main melody. Though it was a melody originally composed for a somber philosophical number about soul wandering, Ilaiyaraaja proves that a composer can tweak a piece of music or a melody to evoke any desired emotion.

Rocket Singh – Salesman of the year is in my opinion, one of the toughest films to write a background score for, for any composer. The film is set in a pace that is true to real life by the writer and the director but the burden of adding rhythm, energy and pushing the momentum has been delegated totally to Salim-Suliaman. It annoys me when a filmmaker, who is unsure of his screenplay, pushes the job to the thump and loudness of a background score and wants it to solely carry the narrative through, but it worked perfectly for this film. It is a tough rope to walk on, but Salim-Sulaiman has succeeded in doing that. The score pushes the momentum to a desired extent and yet never overpowers the proceedings. It would be interesting to know what transpired between Shimit Amin and Salim-Suliaman, when they discussed the background score and the general aural tone of the film.

For the freaking madness of a capper “Kaminey”, Vishal Bharadwaj’s score is as gloomy as Tassaduq Hussain’s cinematography. Vishal resorts to retro and western for action and chase scenes with the theme ‘Go Charlie Go’ recurring throughout the film, and switches to a surreal classical orchestration for Charlie’s colorful dreams. The Charlie and Guddu’s flash back aided by an aching violin solo tries to add an emotional heft to what happened in the past. The mad rock-choir song (which wasn’t included in the Soundtrack CD) that converge all parallel lines to an exhilarating climax is the cherry on the cake.

I have already written about Amit Trivedi’s Score for “Wake up Sid” here and also about why I didn’t nominate Dev.D here.

My Favorite – Amit Trivedi for Wake up Sid

Poll Result