Modern Love soundtrack – an emphatic comeback and a show-stealer

There is so much talk about Ilayaraja’s work for Modern Love Chennai (he composed the music for three of the six films in the anthology) you’d think it was the 80s again. And yet….so little of his work for this series sounds like the 80s (also, a web series wouldn’t/couldn’t have given him a wonderful platform in the 80s!).

Among the songs, Nenjil Oru Minnal (rendered by the man himself) probably evokes his trademark sound the most while the theme The Goodbye with its nods to Mella Mella is the one among the instrumentals that sounds most Raja-like.

But it’s very difficult to identify the maestro in the metal ballad-crossed-with-Mukesh/TMS-waltz Thee Inbamae or the rocker Sooriyan Thondrudhu (albeit the choir like chorus, again, has traces of his style). This is such a stunning reinvention, a volte face almost it’s hard to believe it happened. How on earth did Thiagarajan Kumararaja push him into that space…or was the maestro always eager to shed some skin and it was the directors who wanted the touch of old? After all, the maestro has changed his sound more than any composer not named A R Rahman during his long, long career. You cannot tell me you hear much of Annakilli Unnai Theduthe in Thodatha Thaalam. And Pattu Poo Poo in 1994 is already very different from even that 1987 track. And NEPV’s Pengal Yendral was already a guns-blazing rocker. I have a theory that in fact Ilayaraja fans are addicted to his vintage sound and accuse him of not changing to cover up for this addiction.

But even so, Modern Love is still stunningly bold and that’s without even mentioning his age. It also offers a fresh canvas for Raja-jazz. The Goodbye is very typical of many jazzy themes he has done over the years, while Kaalai Visai picks up where Day by Day left off back in 1994 and adds mandolin to the mix (an unexpected contemporary-retro touch, also evident on Aanaal which is clearly a youthful interpretation of nostalgia). But the maestro-rendered Paavi Nenjae is the most satisfying of the jazzy numbers and my pick of his work on the album. I wish he had composed this when he was younger and had a little more heft in his voice. But he still manages to capture that gentle swag you need in jazz – a casual gravitas that is so appealing in this space.

In the midst of all this, though, three other composers did work on the anthology. And one of them steals the show (in my opinion) with a lovely, lovely number that, oddly enough, has the tender sweetness of some of the maestro’s vintage work (think Kaiveesum Thamarai or Seer Kondu Vaa) in a modern package. That number is Sean Roldan’s Uravu, rendered by him and Padmapriya Raghavan. As such, Uravu is an apt demonstration that the line between modern and classic is not and (indeed need not) be defined by the presence or absence of autotune, programmed beats or electronics. Or indeed Westernised pronunciation of Indian lyrics. Modern is simply a sensibility and not a combination of elements. It’s why Gagan Dhuan Dhuan too sounds modern even though it too is drenched in acoustics.

When I played the Raja songs on Modern Love, my mother commented that they don’t even sound like Tamil songs (which is apt because the vocals both in terms of writing and rendering of, especially, Aanaal, Sooriyan, Kaalai and Thee, are unabashedly Western). On the other hand, the singing in Uravu is authentically Tamil. And the combination of that authentic and rustic Tamil sound with the contemporary indie-like music is beautiful.

Also, like his much more illustrious senior on the project has often done, Roldan creates an earworm of a motif through the whistled part that is repeated a bunch through the song. Violins are used elegantly and without overpowering the song, while most of it is driven by piano and guitar. As I said, there’s nothing on Uravu that would sound odd on an old track, indeed an 80s Ilayaraja track. And yet, it sounds unmistakably modern, unmistakably 2023 and achieves this feat just by its very being.

In a review of Wolf, the reviewer commented that James Spader had all but stolen Jack Nicholson’s thunder (in a project championed by Nicholson no less!). I will not exactly transpose that to Modern Love but Roldan more than holds his own with his magical creation in a project dominated by Ilayaraja. For now, Ilayaraja is receiving all the (well deserved) plaudits for Modern Love. But in the fullness of time, Uravu will stand tall and shoulder-to-shoulder with the maestro’s own work for Modern Love.