Maan Karate - music review

Anirudh’s one of the rare composers who has made conversational Tamil sound more like music and it’s a good thing. His latest offering is “Maan karate” which has a sugar-and-spice combo of Sivakarthikeyan and Hansika in the lead with debutant Thirukumaran wielding the megaphone.

“Maanja” has Anirudh crooning to his own tune. It is peppy and believe this- it is a love track. Karky belongs to the breed of “research-poets” still left in Kollywood. All his research on the Madras dialect seems to have paid off for the Chennai lingo is transliterated in style.

The funky and the wannabe folksy “Darling Dambakku” (penned by Yugabharathi) scores with the brilliant vocals of the incredible but underutilized  Benny Dayal and ‘kamli’ Sunidhi Chauhan. Anirudh does throw surprises. Non-Anirudh moments such as ‘Did- I- just- hear- a- flute?’ and ‘was- that -a- Sitar? ’ were aplenty. The Reprise version of the song (the same track with the vocals replaced by Nivas and Kalpana) seems like an underperformer because everyone liked the original better.

“Royapuram Peter” marks the return of our very own Paravai Muniyamma! Sivakarthikeyan joins her and he doesn’t make a mess of the already messy lyrics written by RD Raja. Wish there was more to the song other than the electric guitar and P.M’s eclectic “come on”s and the ultimate “ok bye”!

Anirudh hands himself the mike (um… for the nth time) for “Un Vizhigalil”. Shruthi proves time again she’s beauty and talent combined.  The song is Western in soul with Carnatic interludes and they jam pretty well.  Though a tad difficult to hum, this track is perfect caller-tune material.

 Then there’s the antithesis of the soup song  “open the Tasmac” penned by Gaana Bala and surprisingly not sung by him. Gaana king Deva gives the song the right dose it needs. And we actually heave a sigh of relief- though it’s yet another “thanni song”, the lyrics aren’t exactly gloomy! The opening of the song is what makes “open the tasmac” click!

Verdict- 3/5

Maan Karate has some spunky and sprightly songs that might do justice to the movie’s story and its supposed quirkiness.

But is there any of Anirudh’s career best tracks in this album? I’m not sure…!

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