- Sreya Sunil

Suresh Krishna, once a highly successful director, after a string of colossal failures like Daddy, Abhay, Baba, Idi Maa Ashokgadi Love Story now returns with Raghavendra where he directs the new handsome angry young man Prabhas, Manmadhudu fame Anshu and Allari fame Swetha Agarwal. Prabhas has established himself very well as a hero with his debut movie Eeswar. Though Eeswar did not give him desired success, it did make people notice him and thus watch out for the present movie.

None of Suresh's recent movies had good soundtracks in spite of he roping in biggies like AR Rahman [Baba], Shankar-Ehsaan-Leoy [Abhay] and SA Raj Kumar [Daddy]. So this time Suresh tries his luck with Mani Sharma and what more? Mani gives him a decent soundtrack, which has everything in it ranging from a divine devotional song to a racy mass song, a typical love duet to a quintessential hero solo song.

Given the targeted audience and the kind of mass masala entertainer Raghavendra is supposed to be, Veturi, Suddala Ashok Teja and Vennelakanti are asked to handle the lyrics in this album. Not so surprisingly, they do come up with decent lyrics in at least one song each.

1. Nammina Naamadi (Listen)
A very good devotional composition that starts off with an invocation of Mantralaya Raghavendra Swamy by Kalpana. Shreya Ghosal takes off from there with a divine grace in her sweet voice. Added to that, Veturi pens simple yet beautiful lyrics on Raghavendra Swamy. Mani, while keeping the devotional elements in tact, makes this song a melodious one.

2. Sarigamapadanisa (Listen)
A fusion number that is a concoction of western and classical beats. Karthik and Kalpana sing this one accompanied by a background humming by Premgi. Lyrics by Veturi are plain mediocre and it's the singers who try their best to make this one sound a little better. Mani's orchestration is good but the song lacks that something which could have made it a better number.

3. Nee stylei naakistam (Listen)
This one, like the above song, falls into the typical love duet slot. If the above number had good orchestration, this one scores in terms of melody. Given the kind of 'stuff' Suddala Ashok Teja usually delivers (or rather is asked to deliver), he takes us by surprise with his sorta neat lyrics here. Harish Raghavendra and Sujatha do their job in their usual styles.

4. Bootulu Tittakuraa (Listen)
For the kind of catchy lyrics Vennelakanti has penned, this number would definitely ascend its way up the popularity scales but the song as such is just an okay number at times reminding us of the erstwhile popular 'Stop That' number of mid nineties. A touch of patriotism, involving Kashmir and the infamous ISI, also has been tugged into this song. Mano imparts his own charm to this song and is definitely an apt choice for this one.

5. Adugulona Adugu (Listen)
A seductive duet written by Veturi that falls short of being bewitching. Though Mallikharjun and Gopika Poornima try their best to salvage this song, their efforts don't entirely succeed. Mani always presents a new Mallikharjun in his albums. After Ghallu Ghallu [Indra], Lalu Darwaja [Bobby], Saahasam [Okkadu], Mallikharjun, with his song, proves his versatility in singing varied songs with enough variety. This guy is here to stay!

6. Calcutta Pan Vesina (Listen)
Mani transforms his hit number 'All Thotta Bhoopathy' [picturized on Vijay and Simran] from Tamil film Youth into this racy mass song. Not pondering too much on the quality of lyrics, by Suddala Ashok Teja, I would say this is a good dance number, at least better than many of the teen-maar songs that are thrust on us. Sung enthusiastically by Shankar Mahadevan [who also sang the original Tamil number] and Chitra, this one is touted to have Simran dancing to glory with Prabhas. Is she all set to start a new innings in Tollywood with this song, much alike her earlier innings which boomeranged with 'Aata Kavala' song from Annayya which again was composed by Mani?

Over all, this album has a decent effort from Mani Sharma with some instant winners like Calcutta Pan and Nammina Naamadi. The rest of the songs are not bad either. Some of them (like Bootulu Tittakura, Nee Stylei) will start climbing the charts based on the movie's success. Though the music of this album is nowhere close to Mani's brilliant work in his last album Okkadu, there cannot be much complaining from Prabhas's fans for this, indeed, is a decent album.

Sreya's Picks: Nammina Naamadi, Calcutta Pan

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Appudappudu
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Thottigang
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Eeswar
Nee Sneham
Bobby
Nuvve Nuvve
Gemini
Chenna Kesava Reddy
Okato Number Kurraadu
Sontham
Baba
Holi
Avunu Valliddaru Ista Paddaru
Allari Ramudu
Indra
Jayam
Sreeram
Kanulu Moosina Neevaye
Vasu
Santosham