{mosimage}What I am hearing these days? Bollywood and Kollywood had taken a back seat with this Tollywood musical hit 'Happy Days'. This album broke all the myths about the Telugu music sound that was typically trademarked by MM Keeravani - K Raghavendra Rao combinations. Happy Days is daringly different, refreshing, universal, youthful at the same time soulful. Just give it a try, you'll understand what I mean. Debutante musician J Meyer had given this camps flick a new sound. My Tamil friends who saw this Shekar Kamnula's movie recommended me to watch it, which I haven't done still. Infact I have DVDs of Shekar's earlier ventures - Anand & Godavari, but yet to catch up.
The 7 songs are listed on the basis of my favourites. Rather than going on the plus and minus, let me put in a line of what hooked me to this song.
1. Arey Re Arey!- Tamil Singer Karthik's soothing vocals, it starts with a bang but slips to rhythm with guitar sound. I can say Karthik is the Sonu Nigam of South - both share the same soulful quality and cotton softness in their voice.
2. Jil Jil Jiga - Infact a strong contendor to my top list. This boys chorus is so natural, hummable and I used to smile at their emphasis on 'Oo' sound, e.g. tenderluuu, chattinguuu...
3. Happy Days - There are two versions of this song (Rock version and melody) and they evoke an nostalgic feeling while hearing them, especially the melodious version.
4. Oh My Friend - This is the pathos and who else than Karthik is better suited for this song? A great humming interlude... 'Ooh my friend'. After few seconds, you start giving the language a miss and get hooked by the melody.
5. Ye Cheetaki - A Disco number that reminds lot of 'Its the time to disco' from 'Kal Ho Na Ho'. Sunitha Sarathy sounds lot like Vasundhara Das, so you can't stop comparing them both.
6. Ya Kundendu - A small prayer song (1:21 min). Again it reminded me 'Ik Onkar..' from 'Rang De Basanthi'.
What if you are not a Golttu or don't know Telugu, just Go for this CD and the album will hook you from the word 'GO!'.
Titbits:- Madhu, our ABAP-er gave me three songs via mobile transfer on a Friday evening. I was leaving to hometown for a weekend and in the bus I slept with the walkman on. When these songs came, I woke up and I felt like being in dream. I SMSed him thanking but he sent me a reply in Telugu, which turned out to be filthy language on translation.
{mosimage}Then I searched for this movie's information on the Net and found out that this Shekar Kamnula's third venture was shot in the Engg COllege he studied. He took rank new comers Varun, Sandesh, Nikhil, Raahul, Vamsee Krishna, Gayatri Rao, Monali Chowdary, Sonia who had no acting or theatre experience to bring out that rawness in the film. Only known face in the movie was - Tamanna, the 'Kedi' girl. 'Happy Days' had done exceedingly well in cities, multiplexes and in US, thus making it one of the top grossers of 2007. Prakash Raj had purchased the Tamil remake rights of this movie and had signed renowned cinematographer KV Guhan to shoot this.
