billyblue;260898VWbuggy78 - I do not know the knitty gritty of music - carnatic or hinustani or classical or whatever. Have ears and listen to music and ARRs music is honey to my ears and my soul. Whenever I feel like listening to songs, I choose ARR over IL or English songs thats because I am able to connect to his ragas, instrument choice, melodies or whatever. I do listen to non-ARR tamil songs - but boy, I can tell almost all of them are waste of MY time. According to me, IL time is long over. I made honest attempts to connect to his music but I fail each time. One instance is when I rushed to get his Thiruvasagam CD on the day of his release in 2005 - but boy, another huge disappointment. Some of his movie songs are way better. Anyways - his music is simply not to my taste. Maybe - as you seem to suggest - my musical taste is inferior because it likes ARRs music. But to me - playing IL's music on my bose surround is like downgrading my music taste. I ain't gonna do that on my bose - but, maybe that's alright for me if its on a radio or tv station. Maybe, I'm content to play few hundred ARR songs in a loop - because they are truly worthy of repeated listening.
Each to their own.I have listened to world famous Oscar winning song "Jai Ho" multiple times and it sounds terrible to me. What is so great in it I ask myself.
Coming back to IR vs ARR, IR connects well to nook and corner of Tamil Nadu. He uses tunes that a villager can relate to. A villager will dance to "Manguyile Poonguyile" than "Jai Ho". IR has numerous gems that are simple and catchy tunes without relying much on flashy music instruments.