Song of the Dat, Feb 28, 2006

Song: For the love of god (listen/see)
Artist: Steve Vai
Album: Passion and Warfare

An amazing guitar solo ... and an interesting video

"We may be humans ...
... but still we are animals"

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Song of the Day, Feb 27, 2006

For those looking for inspiration ...

Song: Go the Distance (listen/see the spanish version) (english lyrics)
Artist: Michael Bolton(English), Ricky Martin (Spanish)
Album: OST Hercules

Its a pity I cannot link to the english version ... the english lyrics are really good and is very well sung by michael bolton.

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Videos worth seeing

All these videos are from ifilm; it has a large collection of videos. (warning hajjaar timepass material!)

• They are remaking "The Shining" (Jack Nicholson); here's the trailer.
• Here's a video of Seinfeld in UK.
• And a list of super-bowl ads.

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Song of the Day, Feb 25, 2006

I am back after a brief hiatus ... (no i did not mug the 'H' world list recently ;-) )

Was listening to the songs in the movie Taxi # 9211 (9211 refers to the hindi usage 'nau do gyarah'). One song stands out and two more are quite good. At first listen they might seem you have heard them before but they are quite good.

The first song is very different from the run of the mill songs. As is typical of Adnan Sami, he puts hazaar josh into the song but without heavy music! A very light yet pacy song.

Song: Meter Down (listen)
Singer: Adnan Sami
Composer: Vishal Shekhar

The next one is sort of Richard Marx/Michael Bolton (or should I say John Legend) meets Bollywood - hindi R&B! A very soft and slow song (with some slow guitaring in between) which is very well sung by Shaan.

Song: Bekhudi (listen)
Singer: Shaan

The third one is a typical Kunal Ganjawala song. Has a lounge-music feel to it (Robert Miles?) -- seems to be becoming a signature of Vishal-Shekhar. Good for light listening in the background.

Song: Udne Do (listen)
Singer: Kunal Ganjawala

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Sachin

This is a 3 min clip of sachin blasting various bowlers ...

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Song of the Day, Feb 21, 2006

Song: Bolero (napster)
Composer: Ravel

This is a very interesting piece. It has just one single tune which keeps repeating -- every time with a new instrument and with more volume. Gives the impression of a great climax!

Some trivia: Jayne Torvill & Christopher Dean were ice dancing champions in the winter olympics of 1984. They danced to this very piece and were the only pair to be ever awarded the perfect score. So ice dancers these days do not perform to this piece as unconciously judges are biased by the Torvill-Dean masterpiece.

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masters thesis in slang and all and all

I guess I will be the first to post this: A German girl has written her Masters Thesis on the subject of lingo in IIT-M and other similar closed settings.

tmm in lingo and all!

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Song of the Day, Feb 20, 2006

Guitarists fascinate me ... and amongst the contemporary ones Prasanna fascinates me the most !

Album: Be the Change (samples) (also hear it on napster)
Artist: Prasanna

I am not picking out any single song - I liked the whole album. My picks in this album are Ragabop, Dharma becomes Alibama, Pangaea Rising, kalyani Connection ...

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Song of the Day, Feb 19, 2006

Song: Clifs of Dover (listen/see)
Artist: Eric Johnson

This piece is my pick for one of the best guitar pieces of all time. (The video linked to in this post is not of the best quality -- for better quality go to napster. But the video has some nice close-ups of the guitaring!) Eric Johnson, Joe Satriani and Steve Vai comprise the famous G3.

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Song of the Day, Feb 17, 2006

Song: Thirakkatha (listen)
Singer: Chitra K S, Unnikrishnan
Composer: A R Rahman
Album: En Swaasa Katre

This song was not a very big hit -- it is very melodious and the instruments are used very well. With a little research I found out that the electric guitars in this song were given by the famous guitarist Prasanna. Check out samples from his new album (a dedication to Jimi Hendrix!) Electric Ganesha Land.

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Song of the Day, Feb 16, 2006

Song: Enna Samayalo (listen)
Artist: S P B and Chithra
Composer: Ilayaraja
Movie: Unnal Mudiyum Thambi

This song is about two people trying to cook a meal. It is similar to the one I posted about a month back, in the sense, each paragraph is composed in a different ragam with the lyrics including the name of the ragam.
But apart from that, in some of the paragraphs, every occurence of any the music syllables Sa,Ri ... Ni, Sa is sung in that swaram.
As an example in the line,
"Ma Sa La Garam Ma SaLa", the highlighted syllables are in fact the swarams of the ragam. More lyrics in Comments..

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Song of the Day, Feb 15, 2006

It pains me as I post this song on one of the most beautiful days at ithaca this winter ... anyways today's song is ...

Song: Bad Day (listen/see)
Artist: Daniel Powter

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Song of the Day, Feb 13, 2006

Song: Galvanize (napster)
Artist: Chemical Brothers
Album: Push the Button

Cool song (grammy winner) which has an arabic/techno beat ...

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Rahat Fateh Ali Khan

This is an interview with Rahat Fateh Ali Khan.

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Song of the Day, Feb 12, 2006

Continuing on the subject of duets, (run up to feb 14? .. I think feb 14 is over-rated .. but then I am single right now ... so ... )

Song: Malare Mounama (listen)
Singer: S P B & S Janaki
Composer: Vidyasagar
Movie: Karna

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Song fof the Day, Feb 11, 2006

Song: Endhan Nenjil Neengatha (listen)
Artist: K J Yesudas & S Janaki
Composer: Ilayaraja
Movie: Kalaignan

One of the best duets I have ever heard (yes, the female voice sounds a bit too high ... but even then). The first few lines of the song mean ...

"... are you the unending breeze in my heart,
are you the one singing 'dhir dhir dhillana' ..
are the musical ragas like honey ...
are you the nightingale singing it ... "

(or am i missing something ... )

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Song of the Day, Feb 10, 2006

Song: Ordinary People (listen/see) (altenrate listen/see)
Artist: John Legend
Album: Get Lifted

John Legend - winner of three grammies including best newcomer and for this track. The song is, according to John Legend, "... real, a composite of experiences. It's about love, not as a fantasy or fairytale, but as it really goes down between two people ..."

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Inzy run-out video

You might have already seen this if you have been keeping up with cricinfo. If not, here's the video (at Google Video) of Inzamam's run-out in the first odi. cricinfo's article on the subject by Osman Samiuddin is pretty interesting.

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Song for the Day, Feb 9, 2007

For those who missed the grammy show ...

Song: A Song for You (see/listen)
Artist: Christina Augilera & Herbie Hancock
Album Possibilities

This song was nominated for the best Pop collaboration with vocals (and lost out to Feel Good Inc!) and was performed by Christina and Herbie at the show. I would rank the performance as one of the best I have seen on live TV. The vocals of Christina were simply superb and the Herbie Hancock's improvisations on the jazz piano were incredible. The link I have posted is of their live performance on the Ellen Show.

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Song of the Day, Feb 8, 2005

Song: Nee Irangayenil (listen)
Artist: Nisha Rajagopalan
Composer: Papanasanam Sivan

The singer was a classmate of mine in school !!!

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Song of the Day, Feb 7, 2005

Song: Feel Good Inc (listen/see)
Artist: Gorrillaz
Album: Feel Good Inc

Quite a good song and a cool video.

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Another day another story

Found another very good story: The Monkey's Paw by W.W. Jacobs (though very different from the previous story; this was written in 1902). You might have seen this before; if not, definitely worth a read. I remember seeing a very similar version on Kannada Doordarshan a few years ago.

Again, the site is interesting, looks like it has good timepass material: "Gaslight is an Internet discussion list which reviews one story a week from the genres of mystery, adventure and The Weird, written between 1800 and 1919"

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Decent SF site

Take a look at this story : The Nine Billion Names of God
(Linked from Slashdot)
This here I think is a very good example of "new-age SF", above and beyond the old traveling at the speed of light and wormholes and aliens and all.
The site also is interesting -- it's been set up as a year-long project, with a story put up for each day of the year, and it will end on Jul 31 '06.

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Song of the day, Feb 1st

Song: Jab samne tum aate ho
Artist: Asha Bhonsle and Jagjit Singh
Category: Ghazal (Album: Dil Kahin Hosh kahin)

I really like this one. The video has Riya Sen and the music is very melodious.

http://www.musicindiaonline.com/l/10/s/album.807/

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