'Kabali' music album shows Rajinikanth's popularity with younger audiences

Rajinikanth’s Kabali producer Kalaipuli S Thanu had to advance the release date of the film’s audio by a day, as some songs got leaked online. As per prior plans, Thanu was to launch the audio on Sunday, 12 June. But due to the leak, two songs out of the five was released by Saturday evening and the rest by Sunday morning. Since Rajinikanth is holidaying in the US, the plans for a big audio launch were dropped at the last minute and it was just a soft launch, with Soundarya Rajinikanth gracing the occasion. Music director Santhosh Narayanan’s album features five songs and they have become instant chartbusters. A spokesperson of Think Music, the audio right holders, said, “Kabali is a superstar’s film and was one of the most eagerly awaited albums. It has opened in the number one position on I Tunes across various countries.” [caption id=“attachment_2831956” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Rajinikanth in a poster from Kabali.[/caption] Surprisingly, Kabali are being sold at Rs 99, due to which they have been sold out in record time. The buzz is that around 10,000 physical CDs have been sold and they are now going for a reprint. This at a time when most music companies have almost stopped printing CDs because digital sales comprises 98 % of any album. Two of the songs that have gone viral, ‘Neruppu Da’ and ‘Ulagam Oruvanukka’ have become instant chartbusters and are said to be the pick of the album. ‘Neruppa Da’ has an instant connect with the youth, thanks to the power packed trailer, which highlights it as a punchline. Kabali is also the first time that Rajinikanth has opted for a new generation music director like Santosh Narayanan. AR Rahman used to be Rajinikanth’s regular music director for nearly a decade – Sivaji, Endhiran, Kochadaiyaan and Lingaa. Another highlight of the Kabali album is that for the first time Rajinikanth has not used the legendary singer SP Balasubramaniyam. SPB, as the singer is popularly known, always used to be featured as the voice of Rajinikanth, especially in the all important introduction song of any of his films. However, in Kabali, the title track and Rajini’s introduction song ‘Ulagam Oruvanukka’ features voices of Ananthu, Santhosh Narayanan, Gana Bala and Roshan Jamrock. The album clearly indicates that Rajinikanth is trying to reinvent himself as a superstar with new generation audiences. South India’s leading music critic Karthik Srinivasan told Firstpost: “ I found the music of Kabali more Santosh Narayanan than Rajinikanth, and I say that in a positive way since a composer is the hero of the album. That way I really admire Santosh to have retained his style even for someone as larger than life as Rajinikanth.” Karthik Sreenivasan feels that Rajinikanth has broken away from convention by agreeing to work with a new director like Pa Ranjith and his team. “In a way by breaking with conventions, it is a great first step to reinvent brand Rajinikanth” concludes Karthik. Meanwhile it is almost confirmed that Kabali release has been pushed from 1 July to 15 July. The overseas distributors doess not want the film to release during Ramadan, and they also want to avoid a clash with Salman Khan’s Sultan releasing on Eid, which is on July 6. The producers also want time to dub the film and get it censored in four languages. Kabali is getting bigger by the day, as producers are planning a new teaser closer to the release date.