Year-end Roundup: Best Tamil songs of 2022

Director Selvaraghvan, whose films are known to have the best of Yuvan Shankar Raja’s music, on hearing the soundtrack from Ponniyin Selvan-1 wrote: “The best music album in my experience is without a doubt AR Rahman and Mani Ratnam sir’s Ponniyin Selvan! The attention to detail in even the minutest sounds is astounding!“

“What vibrant music, Rahman! He took us to Ponniyin Selvan universe with his songs astounding! “Ponni Nadhi” song is so mesmerising. It even makes us sing chorus unconsciously,” said director Shankar.

Though Rahman, with this film, is at the top position, his other works for Iravin Nizhal and Cobra went unnoticed.

Also read: Best Tamil movies of 2022

Anirudh’s music in demand

Anirudh Ravichander connected with the mass audience as the next five hit slots belong to him.

The interesting fact is that even the background scores that he did for these films are in demand as caller and ringtones. A case in point is Vikram.

“Pathala Pathala” and “Porkanda Singam” from Vikram, “Arabic Kuthu-Halamithi Habibo” from Beast, “Bae” from Don, “Dippam Dappam” and “Naan Pizhai” from Kaathuvaakula Rendu Kaadhal, “Megham Karukatha” and “Thenmozhi” from Thiruchitrambalam are all Anirudh’s hit songs of 2022.

Simbu-Gautham Menon’s “Vendhu Thanindhathu Kaadu”, composed by Rahman, caught the ear and put the album in sixth place.

When 2022 started, it looked like Imman was all set as “Summa Surrunu” from Etharkkum Thunindhavan was a cracker of a song, but it failed to get the numbers.

Yuvan–Selvaraghavan with Naane Varuvean and Yuvan with Pradeep Ranganathan in Love Today grabbed the eighth and 10^th slots.

Thaman S stayed in the ninth position with Sivakarthikeyan’s Prince. But, towards the fag end of the year, he delivered two songs for Thalapathy Vijay’s Varisu that are already on the trending list.

Similarly, Ghibran’s score for Ajith’s Thunivu is one that is also a chartbuster of the year’s end.

Also read: Best Malayalam actors of 2022

Top artists missed out

GV Prakash, Govind Vasantha, Hip Hop Thamizha, Devi Sri Prasad and Harris Jayaraj are the ones whose music got lost in the crowded field.

Naai Sekar Returns’ songs, composed by Santhosh Narayanan and rendered by Vadivelu, were supposed to get a slot in the top 10 list. But, as the film bombed at the box office, the soundtrack is out of the field.

According to trade, the music scored for other South Indian films has a huge demand in the market, of late.

An example is “Varaha Roopam” from Kantara, the Kannada film dubbed into Tamil. The music albums of Radhe Shyam, KGF 2 and Sita Ramam were also in high demand.

This is because lyricists like Madhan Karky, Palani Bharathy, and Madhurakavi made the songs look as good as original Tamil songs, say industry insiders.

Tips, which bagged the soundtrack of Ponniyin Selvan-1, and Sony Music have four out of the top 10 titles. Sun Pictures has two; Saregamapa and Aditya Music have one each.

Meanwhile, 2023 is also expected to be Anirudh’s year, as he has Kamal-Shankar’s Indian 2, Rajinikanth–Nelson’s Jailer, Ajith-Vignesh Shivan’s upcoming untitled project, Thalapathy Vijay’s next with Lokesh, and Atlee-SRK’s Jawan (Hindi).