What a voice!

I've been listening to Rahman-Unnikrishnan combo since morning. I haven't heard Unnikrishnan singing any new songs off late. He has such a soft voice, perfectly suited for melodious music. The classical background from which he hails from is a huge plus point. Also,the crystal clear pronounciation of Tamil words makes his rendition all the more worthy to listen.

"Roja roja" from Kaadhalar Dhinam is one of my favorites. A very nice melody with good beats and a unique background score (birds chirping between the first and second stanza). The picturization could have been better. Everyone would agree with me that his best song is indeed "Ennavale" from Kaadhalan. A less popular but a superb romantic number is "Sonnalum" from Kaadhal Virus. Apart from Rahman fans, no one else might have heard of this song as it's never played in Sun Music. Another classical song of Unni Krishnan is "Narumugaiye" from Iruvar. A poetic number with such not-so-commonly-used Tamil words. The very first line "Nee oru naazhigai nillai" is a good example. Though the popular trend is to write Tanglish lyrics, I would prefer pure Tamil lyrics at any day. The language is so vast and poetic that you don't have to mix English words to sell the songs.

I have this strange habit. Whenever I don't get sleep in the night, I switch on my ipod and listen to "Thendralee" from Kaadhal Desam. By the end of this lullaby, I'm asleep. Both Unnikrishnan and Mano complement each other in this soothing song. One more feather in Unnikrishnan's cap is "Thirakkaatha kaatukkulle" from En Swasa Kaatre, one of my favorite Rahman albums. I don't understand why the songs are not so popular. When we talk of hit songs, the ones that come first in my mind are "Adhisayam" and "hairabba" from Jeans, the former being a melody and the latter being a racy number.

Rahman's songs have these cycles - at one point of time it was Unni Krishnan singing most of the songs, then Hariharan and now it's Naresh Iyer being his favorite singer. Hope Naresh can keep up to our expectations.