Category: Music

‘What More Can I Give?’

Like my friend Arun said in a comment to the previous blog post, Michael Jackson is a true musical legend in every sense. Be it song writing, arrangement, high-octave songs, the moves, the moonwalks, the charisma, the voice – he is truly a unique artist and remain unmatched.

I heard this song only today where Michael collaborated with some other great artists of our time, including my favorite singer Celine Dion. Check out the lyrics, enjoy the music.

Michael Jackson All Stars – What more can I give? (Lyrics below)

Billy Gillman: How many children will have to cry, before we do all we can?

Reba McEntire: If sending your love is all you can give

Nick Carter: To help one live Continue reading ‘What More Can I Give?’

My Top Favs from Michael Jackson

jackson

Here is a list of my top favorite songs from Michael Jackson. Just like his songs, the music videos are also superbly done. Click on the song names to watch the videos in You Tube.

Goodbye Michael Jackson

Goodbye and Thank You for your music. Thank you, ’cause you lit up the hopeless days of my teenage with the energy of music. Thank You, because you opened up a whole new world of music which was unknown to me until I discovered your music. With all of your oddities and imperfection as a human being, you are truly a musical legend and your music will travel through the times. Rest in Peace, the King of Pop…

Related post: Michael Jackson turns 50

Why do you listen to music?

About an year back, Josh asked me to write about what makes me sing or love music. I had never thought of it, really. What makes a person listen to music? There is no one particular reason, I believe.

I have seen people listening to music at the bus stands, at the railway stations etc. That reminds me of an advertisement for iPod – “when you do not wish to talk to strangers, plug in your iPod“. But that takes out the romanticism of music, but there are people who do just that. I have seen youngsters playing loud music at home, just to ignore the lectures of the parents. They just shut the door of their room and play the music aloud. Or the people who goes to clubs, to party. They want loud, techno, new age music, just to help them shake a leg. Different people have different reasons for listening to music.

I have had all these reasons to listen to music. But I also had those moments where I would just sit close to the windows of my house, just to listen to the music that came out of the neighbor’s house. Thus I heard the songs like MJ’s Beat It to Manjal Prasaadavum. Or Billy Joel to Pudamuri kalyaanam. I also had those moments when I would just plug in the Walkman earphones and sit in the veranda at night, watching the sprinkles of rain outside that was barely seen in the dim street lights. Those were the moments in which I fell in love with music.

Why do I listen to music? Because it soothes my soul. It takes off the anger, sadness and despair in me and says “come, let’s take a walk and everything will be fine“. And it works all the time.

Now, what is your reason?

PS: By the way, do check out Joshua’s website for updates on his movie project with Shyamaprasad – Ritu. He has written the story and screenplay of this much awaited new film from Shyamaprasad.

FM war – The best and worst slogans

You would get to hear the slogans of FM stations everywhere now, since the FM frenzy has caught up in Kerala. The major FM stations in Kerala are Club FM, Radio Mango, BIG FM, S FM, Best FM and Radio Mirchi. The slogans blast at you several times a day in these channels. Let us a have a look and see which of them is best and which is worst – in a descending order.

sFM

6) S FM – Kelkkoo, Kelkoo, Kettu Kondeyirikku
(Owned by: Sun Network)

The main problem with this slogan is that it’s too long. Too long for an FM station that has the shortest name in the market (S FM). And the word “Kelkkoo” repeats. It doesn’t stay in your mind.

bigFM

5) BIG FM – Kelkoo, Kelpikkoo, Life Kondaadu
(Owned by: AdLabs Films Ltd, subsidiary of Reliance group)

Again, it’s too long. It is also identical with the S FM slogan. You wouldn’t want to hear these two slogans repeatedly when you listen to these FM stations. Just that slogan would be enough to make the listener switch to a different radio station.

rmFM

4) Radio Mirchi – Sangathi Hot Aanu
(Owned by: Entertainment Network India Ltd)

It sounds hip and cool when you hear this slogan in English (“It’s Hot”), but the problem comes when you literally translate it to Malayalam. The word “Sangathi” with “Hot” may not go well with every one as it could be interpreted with a dual meaning.

mangoFM

3) Radio Mango – Naattilengum Paattaayi
(Owned by: Malayala Manorama)

It rhymes well (Naattu & Paattu), but the focus of the slogan is on music alone, while the FM radios are meant to be not just for music but also for fun and entertainment. In the local dialect, the Malayalam phrase “naattilengum paattaayi” refers to a fast spreading local news, mostly a gossip. Either way, I don’t think they got it right. But yes, it is a catchy line.

cFM

2) Club FM – Ton Kanakkinu Fun
(Owned by: Mathrubhumi)

It means “Tons of Fun” in English. It rhymes well and everytime I hear this, a box full of fun and entertainment comes to my mind, which itself makes me keep listening to this FM station. Goes to the second place in my rating.

bestFM

1) Best FM – Tringalaalaa…
(Owned by: Asianet)

This gets you straight to a holiday mood. It is short, precise, musical and relaxed. What more do you need to convey with an FM station? Goes to the first place in this rating.

(Coming up: FM stations in Kerala – The best Theme Music)

A Song for World Music Day

jimreevesI do not need a particular day for music, because I breathe and live with music everyday. Everyday is a music day for me. Music is my best stress-buster, music is my first love, music is my best friend and music is the way I connect to God. The world music day reminds me that music has no barrier of language or region or religion. Music is universal. And I think music lovers should open themselves to listen to all kinds of music to broaden their experience of music. Because there is no such thing called bad music. It is all related to how much a person can appreciate a certain form of music and it is some artists or bands who make the music sound bad.

Fellow music blogger and a good singer himself Mr. N V Krishnan suggested that I should sing some songs by Jim Reeves. He thought that it would suit me well, after he listened to my song Let Them Sleep. He suggested a few songs and I listened to one of the songs yesterday. I loved it, particularly the lyrics, and recorded it straight away. So here is my song for the world music day, dedicated to N V K. Special thanks to George for the karaoke track.

Song: I Won’t Forget You
Original Singer: Jim Reeves
Covered by: Joseph Thomas (Jo)

Download I Won’t Forget You by Jim Reeves (3.15 MB)

Lyrics:

I know that I won’t forget you
For I’ve loved you too much for too long
Though you don’t want me now, I’ll still love you
‘Til the breath in my body is gone

That’s how it is with me and you’ll always be
The only love I ever knew
I’ll forget many things in my lifetime
But my darling I won’t forget you

Jamendo – Free & Legally Downloadable Music


Jamendo is a website where you can stream and legally download independent music albums from various parts of the world. Just a quick look at their website will show you the music from USA, Canada, Mexico, Italy, Aregentina, France, Spain, Germany etc. You can download the entire songs in an album for free and it is legal. The music available is truly professional and released under Creative Commons license.  I think this is a revolutionary step in the field of independent music.

Go ahead, download or listen and enjoy. I just heard a couple of songs from “Oh My” by Sean Fournier and loved it!

(Thanks to Sabu for the info)

New website for Audio India

singer_microphone

Hello! We have a new home for Audio India, a directory of music bloggers from India. Check out the new website at http://www.musicblogsindia.com with many new features which makes Audio India a one-stop-shop for all music blogging listeners. Also please update your feeds accordingly.

http://musicblogsindia.com/feed/ (for posts)
http://musicblogsindia.com/comments/feed/ (for comments)

A little bit of history for those of you who are new to Audio India:

The idea of a complete directory website for Indian music blogging community was suggested by a regular listener of music blogs from India. He said that he didn’t want to go and check every music blog to see if they have got any new updates. Neither did he want to subscribe to all those RSS feeds just to know if there has been any update. That is how Audio India, a music blog to track all updates from music blogs was born, in 2006.

Music blogging was started in early 2005 in India. Since then, the community has grown up from a handful of music bloggers to almost a hundred music bloggers. The first version of this music blog was hosted in Blogger and the new version is a WordPress hosted site with many new features which makes it a one-stop-shop for all music blogging listeners.

New Features:

  • Rating for posts: Now you can rate a music post and the top rated posts will be shown in the side bar. This will help to encourage music bloggers to continue treating you with their songs as well as to improve themselves.
  • Discussion Forums – Discuss anything and everything about music blogging – ask/share where you get the karaoke tracks from, the glitches of home recording, recording tips – whatever you need to discuss about music blogging.
  • Song Requests – You can use this page to request a music blogger to sing your favorite song (however it is the music blogger’s discretion whether to consider or reject the request)
  • Tips & Tutorials – Some great tips and tutorials from the people who have been music blogging since a long time. This will help those of you who want to know what kind of effort goes on behind every music blog post.

That’s all for now. Browse through our pages and let us know if you have any suggestions for improvement. Also don’t forget to subscribe to the Audio India feed.

Kandu Njaan – from Abhimanyu (cover)

Here is a rough recording of one of my favorite songs. I did not try to edit out the breathing noise or lip movements. Just wanted to sing it, since I love this song so much. 🙂

Song: Kandu Njaan Mizhikalil
Movie: Abhimanyu
Music: Raveendran
Original Singer: M G Sreekumar
Covered by: Joseph Thomas (Jo)

Download MP3 of Kandu Njaan from Abhimanyu (3.49 MB)


Kandu Njaan (unplugged) | Online recorder

Music of Lal Meri

I got hooked to this band and their songs for the past few days. The band is Lal Meri, a fusion band with a Trance/Lounge touch. Listen to their songs at Lal Meri’s website or in their MySpace page. My most favorite tracks from the album are Dreams of 18, Sweet Love & Mausam. There is also a remix track of the Hindi song Oh Lal Meri. Their lead singer Nancy Kaye has got an addictive voice that will leave you in a trance by just listening to their songs.

And now here is the video of one of the tracks – Dreams of 18. Grab a copy of Lal meri if you can, even if it’s for the above mentioned 3 songs.