Saturday, November 05, 2011

Kannodu Kaanbadhellam: Revisiting after a decade

Kannodu Kaanbadhellaam was the first film song I covered. Ever. On a casette, with the help of the "karaoke" button on the music system that would suppress the original voice (the casette was then supposed to go to ARR - but ah, well that's another story). That was ten years ago, but the memories are still fresh. "Jeans" had released a couple of years ago and although a ludicrous movie for the most part, it was a laugh riot in our family and we all loved it. In fact if I remember right, we watched it multiple times in the theatre. I was at the peak of my ARR craze then and every time I would see his name appear in the credits on the screen, with the ni-sa-ri-sa track playing in the background, I would melt. We loved the songs so much and I almost damaged the casette by playing it too many times. And my uncle would joke that his car just wouldn't move if he didn't play Jeans songs =) Ah, those were the days...

This song, kannodu, surprisingly wasn't a favorite at first. It was Nithyasree's first film song and I found it.. er.. funny - for lack of a better word. The visuals were hilarious and that added to the comic factor. But it slowly grew on me and as the influence of the movie waned, I started seeing the classical richness of the song. And then in 2001, something came over me suddenly and I wanted to explore that "karaoke" button on our music system (although we'd had the system for a while before that) and kannodu was the first that came to mind. Everything was simpler back then - from the process of recording to my process of thinking. It was a more naive, carefree mind, not super intent on self-nitpicking. And I surprise myself every time I think of how I recorded back then: the whole song done at a stretch (coz you see, I couldn't cut-copy-paste on a casette).

Fast forward to 2011. The spontaneity, the unbridled enthusiasm, the uninhibited singing - all muted. I like to call it maturity - to keep my sanity. But there's also one other huge difference now: "cooler" gadgets and recording softwares that seem to mock you and exaggerate the smallest flaw. And these things only make it that much harder to achieve complacency.

Anyway... I've had this karoake track for quite sometime now and I somehow never wanted to try recording it- I just wanted to be content with my decade-old recording and not venture into it again. But venture I did, and here's the result. I wanted to sing some actual "kalpana" swarams at the end but the karaoke track had an annoying loud flute sound playing the original swarams, so I couldn't sing anything else there, hmph.

So here goes...

Song: Kannodu kaanbadhellaam
Film: Jeans
Music: A. R. Rahman
Lyrics: Vairamuththu
Singer: Nithyasree Mahadevan



And here's the old one (which I'd posted here some years ago) again, for the record (I think the tempo got increased somehow as a result of which my voice is kinda distorted, but anyway)



8 comments:

Diya said...

Loved it!! Beautiful song beautifully rendered. Nice to hear a rendition very different from the original, softer, mellower!

Needless to say I could so relate to your story, both the ARR new album craze days and the current state of muted spontaneity.

Sindhuja Bhakthavatsalam said...

Thanks Diya! Glad you enjoyed it. And I knew you would be able to relate to this :)

Namaji said...

Wow... This is a fantastic rendering... I could never imagine someone else singing the song till I heard these...

I can perfectly understand the craze for this song.. Has been my zillion-loop favorites for a long time...

Keep up the good work.

Sindhuja Bhakthavatsalam said...

Thank you, Namaji!

wanderlust said...

Hi Sindhuja,
I have a request.

Can you please, please, please cover Kodai Kaala Kaatre from Panneer Pushpangal? www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4T0fjYELw8
I absolutely love the tune on this song, but after listening to a snatch of this in the beginning of Vaaranam Aayiram with just a guitar, I felt it sounds so much better without all the '80s style instruments on the soundtrack.
I'd come across your blog nearly a year back and have been visiting it on and off, and i couldn't get it out of my head that this song would sound very very lovely in your voice.

Do try? :)

--Priya

Sindhuja Bhakthavatsalam said...

Hi Priya,

Thanks so much for stopping by and for the suggestion! Lovely song, yes - would indeed be nice to try it. Soon :)

karthika said...

Really great rendition. I came here by listening to your elangathu cover with Joseph.

Sindhuja Bhakthavatsalam said...

Thanks Karthika!