With a catchy tune and insane beats, ‘Why this kolaveri di’, has gone viral on the internet. The song, it turns out, was actually a behind-the-scenes shoot for the song that also features Dhanush’s wife Aishwarya, actor Kamal Hasan’s daughter Shruti and debutant music director Anirudh Ravichander.
The song’s pan-Indian appeal is startling indeed, and can be attributed to the following factors: its eclectic mix of English lyrics with a Tamil drawl, the accompanying kuthu beats with the hint of a piano interlude, and the matter-of-fact filming of the video done by Sony India, the promoters of the song.
A rough version of the song, says its music director Anirudh Ravichander, was leaked on the internet. “Tracking the person who had done so is a difficult process, but we managed to.” However, the pulse to the song was so overwhelming that he says he would have thanked that person instead, while knowing that the leak could have actually backfired on them.
Karthikeyan R, a software engineer at an IT firm in Bangalore says, “The simple lyrics and catchy beats in the song had me hooked to Why... I am willing to overlook the fact that the English dished out in the song was grammatically incorrect.”
Echoing Karthikeyan’s views is Aashish Solanki, founder designer of a city-based online brand strategy organisation. He concurs that he found an instant connection with the song, despite not understanding Tamil. “The tune was awesome and I was attracted to it instantly.”
The unconventional lyrics, he says, struck a chord. “The mishmash of genres in this song is reflective of the typical Indian mindset,” Solanki adds. “With TV no longer being the mass-media, it is inevitable that people switch to social networking sites for advertising.”
Enter social networking sites, and you need what is known as a talking point, which, according to Rishabh Malhotra, founding partner of a city-based men’s lifestyle website, was inherent in the song. The song had catchy tune and beats, similar to what an earlier chartbuster, ‘Bhaag DKBose’, from the movie ‘Delhi Belly’ had, he elucidates. “Such websites provide one-one and one-many connectivity, offering outreach to millions.”
Refusing that the song became a hit because its lyrics comprised slang English, he says that there is only a limit up to which marketers can promote a song, beyond which the song needs to sell itself.
Online facts of the ‘Kolaveri’ song
■ Clocked a whopping 83,000 views in the first 24 hours it was uploaded to YouTube, which at present, stands at a little over 3.5 million
■ Has at least 1 million likes on the networking website facebook (a conservative estimate on all counts)
■ Has even upstaged ‘Bigg Boss’ participant Sunny Leone as the latest trend on Twitter!
■ Is the first suggestion when the word ‘why’ is typed on Google search bar!