Indian cinema has a habit of excessively indulging in a successful combination, to the point where it becomes stale. There are ten tracks in the album E by Srikant Deva, of which five belong to the gaana genre. They closely resemble the immensely successful Vaazha Meenu from Chittiram Pesudhadi. The singer, Pulianthopu Palani, even sounds a lot like Gaana Ulaganathan.

Two of these tracks are attractive -- Ponnadiyan and Na. Muthukumar doesn't appear to have broken into a sweat while writing the songs for E, considering the lyrics are fairly regular. The album credits all its lyricists as 'Kavingyar' (poet), which brings a little smile to one's face while listening to some of the lines. The only lyrics worth mentioning are from the five gaana songs -- simple and light.

It is also becoming fashionable among Tamil music directors to fly a few Hindi singers down to Chennai and have them sing. Singers who, for no fault of theirs, make the ears of listeners bleed with their despicable diction and Tamil pronunciation.

Orey Murai features the voice of Sukhwinder Singh, whose pronunciation makes you want to weep. All the same, this track has the potential for limited success with certain sections of listeners.

Theepori Parakkum, with vocals led by Tipu, is a typical intro song. It strongly keeps in touch with the Tamil movie tradition of kutthu paatu. There is nothing remarkable about it though, as it is similar to many other hits.

What hurts most about this album is the song Varaadhu Poi. It is not a lousy song by itself, but a legend like Yesudoss deserves better treatment. The mixing is so bad that the beats are given more importance than the voice. And yes, the legend is not at his best either.

Hariharan [Images] is the saving grace behind Kadhal Enpathu. He carries the song through unimaginative and unoriginal beats, but the lyrics are good. The mixing lets you down once again. Kala Kala Kalai is sung with conviction by Kalpana, Sowmya and Ranjith. It is a song that will be played on radio stations for a while. Once again, beats are given too much importance. Obviously, this one's not meant for listening at home.

A lot depends upon how these songs are filmed. In the event of unconvincing picturisation, it will be these songs that will destroy the movie.

On the whole, one feels that Srikanth Deva should have paid more attention to his technical crew. The mixing is horrendous, except in the gaana tracks that take care of themselves. The good thing is the album does not disappoint much, mainly because nobody expected it to be great in the first place. You will not lose much if you don't listen to E.

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