Harris Jayaraj - Film Scoring

Film Scoring

Harris ventured into film scoring with Gautham Menon's Minnale. The album was well received, particularly the song Vaseegara was exceptionally popular. He received the Filmfare Award for Best Music Director – Tamil for his work in Minnale, breaking the 9 years continuous record of A. R. Rahman. The following soundtrack albums 12B and Majunu met with high acclaim and praise. His Minnale score was later used in the Hindi version, titled Rehnaa Hai Terre Dil Mein also directed by Gautham Menon. He then worked in Lesa Lesa directed by Priyadarshan. The title track of Lesa Lesa was the first song in India to be released as a single prior to the album release. Harris made his debut in Tollywood with Vasu. He received the Filmfare Award for Best Music Director – Tamil, Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Music Director and ITFA Best Music Director Award for Kaakha Kaakha, starring Suriya and Jyothika. This film directed by Gautham Menon was a huge commercial success and the songs met with great critical acclaim. In its Telugu remake Gharshana two new songs apart from the Tamil version were added to suit the taste of Telugu audience. The songUyirin Uyire reused as Cheliya Cheliya in Telugu and Khwabon Khwabon in Hindi had effective use of gibberish words which later became a signature element in Harris songs.

Harris once again paired up with director Jeeva on Ullam Ketkumae after 12B. The music was appreciated for its excellency and synergy with the atmosphere in and out of the movie. Director S. Shankar, noted leading director of Tamil cinema, paired up with Harris in his magnum opus Anniyan. It was the first time Shankar did not team up with A. R. Rahman and the album turned out as a grand success. Shankar confessed that working with Harris was a great experience. The soundtrack album received several awards including Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Music Director and Filmfare Award for Best Music Director – Tamil. The next film he scored was Ghajini directed by A. R. Murugadoss, for which he received Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Music Director.Critics noted that the album had "scintillating, party-hopping numbers", which resulted in a huge commercial success in audio sales; the track "Sutum Vizhi" crossed 2 crore downloads and turned out to be phenomenally successful. Harris crafted a necessary classiness into Gautham Menon's blockbuster crime thriller Vettaiyadu Villaiyadu starring Kamal Haasan Gautham revealed that he shares the entire script with Harris and provides input's from his side.

"Harris and I, when we work together, we put in a lot of effort. I give him the entire script. I give him inputs. When we sat down for Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu, I told him to do away with the traditional pallavi-charanam format in the Manjal veyyil song."

Harris once again ventured into Tollywood with a successful album Sainikudu. The music album of the film was released simultaneously in 10 chosen venues from five different countries.

Gautham Menon who considers the music and background score of Harris as a major asset of his films, once again teamed up with Harris on a romantic-thriller Pachaikili Muthucharam. The soundtracks of Pachaikili Muthucharam are appraised as melancholic, lilting, mysterious, and alternatively catchy. Harris' collaboration with Jeeva continued with Unnale Unnale. The music album oozing with energy all through proved to be a cut above the rest. His next Telugu venture Munna had a good commercial reception, and the song Manasa fetched a Filmfare Best Singer Female award to Sadhana Sargam. With the following album Bheema, Harris continued his mettle with all the six songs. The track Siru Parvaiyalae used Pashto words in interludes. The album was praised for bringing up visual recapitulation from audio. Harris used a live orchestra of 84 members for the action cop film Sathyam.