WHY THIS KOLAVERI DI? CONQUISTA YOUTUBE

Dhanush

Non posso concludere l'anno senza dedicare un pezzo al fenomeno Why This Kolaveri Di?, brano incluso nella colonna sonora del film tamil 3, diretto da Aishwarya Rajinikanth e interpretato dal marito Dhanush e da Shruti Haasan. La nota canzone è stata composta dal giovanissimo Anirudh Ravichander (cugino di Aishwarya) al suo debutto, mentre lo spiritoso testo tanglish (un mix di tamil e inglese) è stato redatto dallo stesso Dhanush. Ed è sempre Dhanush al microfono a prestare la voce. Il video ufficiale è stato caricato in YouTube il 16 novembre 2011, e ad oggi ha registrato 27.207.000 visite e 93.000 commenti da 130 Paesi. Non si contano le versioni alternative e le parodie fiorite nel web. Why This Kolaveri Di? è il primo brano tratto da una pellicola non hindi ad essere trasmesso con grande frequenza da tutti i canali radiofonici indiani.

È molto interessante l'analisi pubblicata da The Hindu:

'Il clamoroso successo di Kolaveri Di è stato salutato dai commentatori come il primo esempio indiano di marketing virale. E non solo: con Kolaveri Di è balzato al centro dell'attenzione il cambiamento nei rapporti che si intrecciano fra cinema e web. Gli utenti della rete, provenienti da ogni parte dell'India, hanno remixato, rimontato, riutilizzato il video per creare una propria narrazione. Inoltre, sino ad ora, erano solo i filmati a sfondo pornografico o voyeuristico a registrare un numero altissimo di visite. Kolaveri Di è il primo caso in India di un video di tipo diverso che diviene così famoso semplicemente perché divertente e accattivante'.

Ma cosa significa il titolo del brano? Letteralmente: perché questa furia omicida, ragazza?, e per furia omicida qui si intende crepacuore (perché mi hai spezzato il cuore, ragazza?). Nel testo si incontra anche l'espressione soup song. Soup in questo caso indica qualcuno che è stato rifiutato in amore. Soup song si può tradurre con canzone di un fallimento amoroso. In breve Why This Kolaveri Di? parla di un ragazzo che è stato respinto da una ragazza, che si è ubriacato, e che, da brillo, canta chiedendosi perché sia successo.

 

Dhanush e Anirudh Ravichander

RASSEGNA STAMPA/VIDEO

Numerose testate, indiane e non, hanno dedicato articoli al fenomeno Why This Kolaveri Di?, fra cui The Wall Street Journal, BBC, Time, Los Angeles Times. 

- Why this 'Why This Kolaveri'?, Sudhish Kamath, The Hindu, 23 novembre 2011: “Director (...) said the situation demanded a light-hearted fun song about love failure. I came up with a tune in ten minutes. I don't know what kind of mood Dhanush was in... he started singing in broken English and came up with this in 20 minutes. It just happened,” recalls Anirudh'.

- Kolaveri Di: Tamil actor Dhanush's studio rendering of bathroom crooning becomes a global rage, Sangeetha Kandavel, The Economic Times, 23 novembre 2011: 'Interestingly, around 1.5 million people had watched this on youtube in four days, the largest song ever in India. (...) “We did not plan or write down this song. When I explained the scenes to Dhanush he started humming this song at home and I told him we should include this in the movie. And he immediately told me, Why this Kolaveri di (murderous rage)? That’s how the idea for this song came up,” says Aishwarya'.

- The secret behind online viral trends, Pranav Dixit, Brunch, 10 dicembre 2011. Riporto un lungo estratto, che include un'intervista concessa da Dhanush:

'On the evening of November 21, 2011, a strange-looking 10-letter word became the number one trending topic on Twitter. No one knew what it meant but everyone was suitably intrigued. The word read #kolaveridi. Clicking on it opened up a series of tweets, all with links to a YouTube page. Loading the video revealed a wholly unremarkable-looking man singing strange lyrics to a catchy beat in a recording studio as two pretty women looked on. Closer inspection revealed that one of those women was actress Shruti Haasan.

Then, the dam exploded - something happened along the way (God knows what!) - and the song Why This Kolaveri Di from an upcoming Tamil film called 3 went viral. It broke all records to become the number one searched-for song on YouTube from India. In less than two weeks, it received 17 million views and more than 75,000 comments from over 130 countries. Kolaveri, a chilled out, irreverent song about heartbreak, became the national anthem for a generation of ‘soup boys’ who ensured its popularity by playing it 24/7 on cellphones, in cars, as dialer tunes and more; and Dhanush, superstar Rajinikanth’s son-in-law, went from being a South Indian star to a household name. “It was like magic. Like some superior power was at work. You can’t predict these things. Never,” he says.

Indeed, the video has sparked hundreds of spin-offs, sequels, spoofs and remixes, each of which has gone viral in its own right - there’s a heavy metal version of Kolaveri Di, a Marathi version, a female version, a cute-as-hell version by Sonu Nigam’s four-year-old son and even one that stars - go figure - Adolf Hitler! The Japanese are dancing to it; heck, there’s even Kolaveri merchandise. And despite some criticism - lyricist Javed Akhtar called it a song with an ordinary tune, substandard singing and words that insult sensibilities - the juggernaut shows no signs of slowing down. (...)

“I think the song appeals to so many people for a number of reasons - the music is hummable, the lyrics are really simple and heartbreak is an emotion that appeals to everybody. We put it up on the Internet because somehow, we were sure that the song would travel beyond its core markets of Chennai and South India,” says Arjun Sankalia, director, special projects, Sony Music India. (...)

Dhanush, the man behind the ‘funny’ lyrics of Kolaveri Di, on how it feels to be part of a viral phenomenon

From South Indian star to global viral phenomenon! Are you on top of the world?

It feels REALLY nice, especially because this is not something that we were aiming at. It was a humble, honest attempt and it paid off splendidly. I must say that the response we got was completely unprecedented.

Whose idea was it to record a video of a recording session and put it up on YouTube?

Well, what happened was that a rough version of the song was somehow leaked from our computer on to YouTube. We didn’t want to the public getting their hands on an unfinished version like that. So we decided to release it officially on YouTube as well.

It was around midnight and we were exhausted after an entire day of shooting for 3. But we still managed to shoot and record it in about 30 minutes. To tell the truth, we simply recorded a regular jamming session. It’s not like we laboured over the lyrics and the composition for hours. We didn’t rehearse, there were no retakes or anything like that. I think that the video reflects the simplicity of the song itself.

When did you realise it had gone viral?

In about two or three days. Suddenly, we were getting swamped with calls and messages. When I saw the number of views on YouTube, my heart jumped into my mouth.

You have your fair share of critics who say that the song isn’t really that special. Why do you think it has become such a rage?

I really think it’s because of the funny lyrics...

You wrote them yourself, right?

Yes, I did. I just strung together the most commonly used English words in the Tamil language. The irreverence of the song, the Tamil accent, the mood, the simple tune... I think these are the things that broke all barriers and made it work. It’s crazy to be a part of something like this!

Have you sung playback before?

Oh yes, I’ve sung about six to eight songs in various Tamil films here and all of them have been hits regionally.

So what’s next? Bollywood?

(Laughs) You know it’s funny. Last year, I won the National Award for Best Actor for my Tamil film Aadukalam. No one there knew my name. It’s amazing now that when I visit other parts of the country, people say “Oh, you’re the Kolaveri guy!” That said, I’m getting a lot of offers to cut an album... they want Anirudh (the composer of the song) and I to make different versions of the song... maybe even a Kolaveri sequel! Also, the pressure to release the film nationally has now gone up, so we’re looking into that as well'.

- Video Zoom TV: intervista concessa da Dhanush, Anirudh Ravichander e Shruti Haasan

- Video Business of Cinema: caotica intervista concessa da Dhanush nella quale l'attore accenna al testo modificato in onore di Amitabh Bachchan

- Video India Today: partecipazione di Dhanush al Mind Rocks: India Today Youth Summit 2011 a Chennai. Dhanush, imbarazzatissimo, improvvisa un'esibizione.

- Video The Times of India: partecipazione di Dhanush al flash mob organizzato a Mumbai il 21 dicembre 2011 da Mumbai Mirror

- Video: CNN International dichiara Why This Kolaveri Di? 'top song of the year' (aggiornamento del 29 dicembre 2011)

- Video Bollywood Hungama: Dhanush dedica Why This Kolaveri Di? ad Amitabh Bachchan (aggiornamento del 2 gennaio 2012)

Il blog The Kolaveri Wall raccoglie le diverse versioni del brano, fra cui:

- versione del piccolo Nevaan, figlio del celebre cantante Sonu Nigam (4.000.000 di visite in tre settimane)

- versione punjabi (706.000 in due settimane)

- flash mob a Auckland (quasi 400.000 in una settimana)

- versione con Tom & Jerry (258.000 in due settimane)

- How could you do this to me? versione R&B inglese (54.000 in due settimane)

- Where Is Democracy Di? versione satirica pachistana (17.000 in una settimana)

Vedi anche #kolaveridi #ko(s)mikbuzz, 29 dicembre 2011

Aggiornamento del 24 aprile 2012: la pellicola tamil 3 pare non abbia incontrato i favori del pubblico, malgrado il tormentone Why This Kolaveri Di? incluso nella colonna sonora. Vi propongo il video ufficiale tratto da 3. Caricato in YouTube il 10 aprile 2012, conta ad oggi 743.000 visite. Personalmente preferisco il filmato originario girato in studio di registrazione - ad oggi più di 53 milioni di visualizzazioni -, anche se le coreografie maschili sono sempre divertenti.

Aggiornamento del 16 dicembre 2021: 300 milioni di visualizzazioni.