Talk:A. R. Rahman

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the A. R. Rahman article.
Please sign and date your posts by typing four tildes (~~~~). Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Ask questions, get answers. This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject.	Be polite Assume good faith No personal attacks Be welcoming	Article policies No original research Neutral point of view Verifiability

This article must adhere to the policy on biographies of living persons. Controversial material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted or if there are other concerns relative to this policy, report it on the living persons biographies noticeboard.

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.	Biography Portal
B	This article has been rated as B-Class on the project's quality scale. [FAQ]
	This article is supported by WikiProject Musicians, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed biographical guide to musicians and musical groups on Wikipedia.
	This article is supported by WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed biographical guide to actors and filmmakers on Wikipedia.

It is requested that a picture or pictures of this person be included in this article to improve its quality. Note: Wikipedia's non-free content use policy almost never permits the use of non-free images (such as promotional photos, press photos, screenshots, book covers and similar) to merely show what a living person looks like. Efforts should be made to take a free licensed photo during a public appearance, or obtaining a free content release of an existing photo instead.

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Indian cinema, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to Indian cinema. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page.

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject India, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of India-related topics. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page.
B	This article has been rated as B-Class on the quality scale. (add comments)
	This article is maintained by the Tamil Nadu workgroup.
	This article is maintained by the Chennai workgroup.
More information about this article... Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the importance scale by the India project. High This article has been rated as High-importance on the importance scale by the Indian cinema project. This article was last assessed in October 2006.

Contents 1 Artistic merits of his works 2 Referencing 3 Comments for action 4 Rahman's ethnicity 5 Merge 6 Personal information of Rahman 7 Yodha, 1992 8 Asian Mozart 9 Aamir and Rahman 10 Foundation 11 Attention recent editor: 12 This is unreadable 13 Number of recordings sold 14 Also known as Allah Rakha Rahman? 15 Recent edits to A. R. Rahman article 16 LOL 17 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX 18 Organising Summary of career section 19 A decent TIME Magazine article you can quote in this article 20 Remove the overpraise 21 birth year of A R Rahman

[edit] Artistic merits of his works

Thanks for the in Bold textformative entry. One point. This article seems to express a contested opinion about the artistic merits of his works. Opinions on the Wikipedia should be attributed to somebody of relevance. See Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, specifically the section on creative works. --Robert Merkel 05:10, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Referencing

Please provide sources of reference wherever possible. Splashprince 09:47, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Far greater effort can be put into referencing. Better sources of reference than just Internet websites (such as books or academic journals or reputable newspaper articles) can be found to substantiate information regarding this artist. AppleJuggler 16:02, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

A start would be searching through www.scholar.google.com. See the following: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=A.R.+Rahman+music&btnG=Search&hl=en&lr=. AppleJuggler 16:07, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Comments for action

The following paragraph seems extremely biased and does not seem to have a strong backing evidence to it:

"In fact Ilayaraaja made Tamil people (who were listening Hindi songs) to listen Tamil Songs, where as A. R. Rahman made Hindi people(who were listening Hindi songs) to listen Tamil Songs. Another point worth noting is that while Ilayaraaja brought western music in Indian Instruments, A. R. Rahman pioneered the art of composing Indian classical Carnatic and Hindustani Music and using western Instruments to play those tunes"

As pointed out by the anonymous editor above, the statement regarding AR Rahman pioneering the art of composing Indian classical music with Western instruments, and its comparison with the work of Ilaiyaraja is suspect and unsubstantiated. Unless this can be supported by evidence, I believe this comment should be removed. Splashprince 13:14, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

The first sentence is actually a fact. It is also a fact that sales of Hindi Cinema Cassattes dipped greatly in Tamil Nadu after Ilayaraja's entry into Tamil Cinema (in 1980s only Hindi cassattes were selling only in CHennai). Every one knows that ARRahman is the first Tamil (nor non-Hindi music director to rule Bollywood. The second is hard to prove with references but any one who knows the composition of songs like இளைய நிலா பொழிகிறது and கண்ணோடு காண்பதெல்லாம் நில்ல் agree with that.  Doctor Bruno  03:01, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rahman's ethnicity

The article says Rahman is Tamilian. It is widely understood that he is in fact Malayalee. Can somebody confirm this ?

-- Um, im pretty much certain hes Tamil. His dad just worked in the Malayalam film industry, as many tamils have done in the past. Also, as far as I know it is widely understood that Rahman is in fact Tamil (not mallu). --

[edit] Merge

Most articles written by Indians will have these same problems. Indians tend to write their opinion and expect the same of others. Claims that sound like the one you pointed out above are very common. It is merely a way of conv eying the impact of A.R's influence on Indian music consumers. This is how we are taught in school. It is a rare Indian who can put aside opinion and state facts as they stand. Here I offer just an explanation. Being Indian myself, I don't really see a solution to this.

[edit] Personal information of Rahman

Taken from Gopal's ARR page. Should this updated further, or left alone? Should this even be in at all? Also need to verify on which of the sisters is Rehana, the music director. unni 01:34, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Yodha, 1992

• Karthik.raman 04:23, 17 July 2006 (UTC): Can anyone confirm that this is ARR's first film? The edit is unsourced and I am a bit doubtful...

I would say go ahead and remove it. Every source, including Gopal's ARR page indicates that Roja was the first movie by ARR. - unni 20:31, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Asian Mozart

It is common to refer to the person by nickname or other names. See Gavaskar where the name Sunny is in the lead paragraph. See Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel where the Iron man is in the lead paragraph  Doctor Bruno  02:53, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Aamir and Rahman

Is it true Aamir Khan and A R Rahman joined hand for Film?Guddu 06:33, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Foundation

The section I've just edited contained the same information about six different ways -- I've tried to edit it down to the essential information expressed just once. Accounting4Taste 23:17, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Attention recent editor:

Thank you for the enormous amount of work you have done on the A. R. Rahman page. This is obviously a subject that you find of great interest and you have brought a good deal of information to the article.

However, you have also introduced a lot of material that needs a considerable amount of work, and you should be aware that, until this work is done, your efforts are in danger of being removed by the next editor who sees them. Here are the areas that now need to be worked on:

1. You have introduced a large number of quotations to the article. Every single one of those quotations now needs to have a reference to its source so that anyone who reads the article can identify where the quotations come from. A couple of resources for citing are WP:CITE, Wikipedia:Citation templates.

2. The article needs to be divided up into logical sections, and the sections have to be identified with headings in the Wikipedia style.

3. The article needs to have your opinion material removed. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a fan magazine. Any material that is your opinion about how good this artist is has to go -- unless it is something that you are quoting from a respected third-party source, in which case, as per item 1 above, it needs a reference to that source. I will make a start on that by removing the paragraph you titled "Introduction", which was 100% opinion. Opinion material must be removed right down to individual words -- for instance, in Wikipedia, people do not "drool", they "say". Suggesting that they "drool" means that you are offering your opinion about how they meant what they said.

4. This article now contains an enormous amount of information, and some of this information might be more properly found in articles about other things, people, events, etc. Essentially, the article needs to be edited down to the essential information.

5. The article needs to be Wikified -- any time there is a mention of another person, film, award, et cetera, there should be a link to another page within Wikipedia (such as the links in item 1 above).

My advice is for you to (1) open an account within Wikipedia so that your editing can be identified with you, (2) go through the tutorial material within Wikipedia so you learn more about the topics I've mentioned above, and (3) complete the job you have started so that this article meets Wikipedia's standards. Since the article presently has such enormous amounts of work necessary, and doesn't meet Wikipedia standards for style and content, someone might remove your changes and "revert" the article back to where it was before, which would be the appropriate thing to do, so I recommend that you start this process quickly.

If you have any questions, I'll try to help as best I can, and you can contact me through my talk page -- which is one of the things you need to learn about. Accounting4Taste 06:02, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This is unreadable

I'm considering just deleting that horrible chunk of text in the first section. Can someone convince me to take an hour to reorganise it? Because otherwise it's going very soon. --poorsod^talk 15:23, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

See my comments above -- yes, it's definitely not Wikistyled. If the author wants it kept, s/he should be working away at it or expect to find it gone. I wouldn't delete it, though; you might just move it to the talk page so it can be reorganized, edited down, and the quotes sourced. There may be worthwhile nuggets in the mass of unrefined ore. Accounting4Taste 16:30, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I have removed all of the user's additions. The additions do not conform to a number of Wikipedia policies, and it appears some of the details are copyright violations (I took passages of material and found them to be identical to material found online). Nishkid64 (talk) 21:48, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

In that case, I completely support your removing the material. I was just vainly hoping that there was something there that might be useful to someone, I guess. (And I didn't have the courage to read it through, let alone check it for copyvio, so thanks.) Accounting4Taste 22:15, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

The language in the Biography section is terribly complex and staggering, probably too much so for the average reader to stay focused. Sentence structure should be straightened out a bit. We can't have sections like "...piano, in addition to, among others, the synthesizer,..." Dragu (talk) 07:26, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Number of recordings sold

I looked into the claim in the first paragraph and I don't think it's even "arguably" correct, so removed it. Madonna has sold more than 200 million albums according to Wikipedia, double what's claimed for this artist, and the Beatles have sold one billion units (one thousand million). Accounting4Taste 18:50, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

This claim has re-appeared and rather than just revert it, I did some further research, both in Wikipedia and on the net in general. According to Wikipedia, this artist is not in the top ten but is "arguably" in the top 25, and considering the claims for "number of cassettes" may well be in the top 15, but cannot be considered to be in the top 10. The second citation in this article suggests that this artist has outsold both Madonna and Britney Spears put together -- but if you read it carefully, it is in number of cassettes sold, which is almost certainly true but ignores the number of CDs and downloads.

I don't make any claims one way or the other, and if someone has reliable information that proves the number of sales for this artist, I'll certainly acquiesce in whatever claims are advanced. Accounting4Taste 18:18, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

The word "superhit" is essentially meaningless, as are any other grandiose qualifications that do not have numerical associations. If you wish to add qualifications to this article, and you mean them to be useful, then instead of adding meaningless words like "superhit" you could go to the extent of finding out exactly, or approximately, what numbers of sales are associated with specific projects and adding that information for other people's use. Wikipedia is not a fan magazine. Accounting4Taste 17:04, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Also known as Allah Rakha Rahman?

He is is famous as "AR Rahman" he is not "also known" as by that name. it just happens to be that his birth name is differnt.

--12.152.10.63 18:23, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Recent edits to A. R. Rahman article

A user keeps adding false claims using a self-published source as a citation. Previous attempt to resolve dispute on talk page here was ignored here, not addressed or replied to either, just removed. The sources in question are the blog here and this site here, whose disclaimer at the bottom states quite clearly in any case that the author is not knowlegable in the field (in this case music). His work has not been previously published by a reliable third party publication therefore these sources are in violation of WP:Verifiability#Self-published sources (online and paper). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Clubover (talk • contribs) 14:13, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

This appears to be a pretty clear-cut situation. Self-published sources are strictly not allowed as reliable sources. If independent, third party sources can be found for the information contested, please add references to them. IF there are none, they may be removed in a timely manner. The problem with self-published sources is that anyone can then create a blog and publish their own 'fact', then add it to Wikipedia, and damage its reputation. _Jame§^ugrono 10:39, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree for the most part. I think this edit is in violation of many policies, it is poorly sourced negative information which can and should be removed immediately. It doesn't help matters when the User who is adding this stuff keeps deleting these discussions from the talk pages either. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Clubover (talk • contribs) 20:53, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Please sign your comments using ~~~~. I will give the user one last warning. _Jame§^ugrono 07:56, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] LOL

One Dileep Kumar adopts a Muslim name and another Muslim adopts the name Dilip Kumar. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.140.120.11 (talk) 21:22, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.223.163.5 (talk) 12:47, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Organising Summary of career section

The section seems more haphazard and less organised chronologically or logically. If it can be classified either by timeline or any other logical manner, there shall be more scope to build and expand on it. sriks8 (talk) 05:48, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] A decent TIME Magazine article you can quote in this article

This article might help provide substantiation for some of the facts that are quoted in this AR Rahman article: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,501040503-629433,00.html

Let's stick with strong, credible references whenever possible. Here's one. And it was no sweat to find with Google.com. AppleJuggler (talk) 03:30, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Remove the overpraise

The lead, introductory paragraph contains phrases that say AR Rahman is the greatest Indian music composer ever. This is a point of view. Could we remove this and other fan gush to make this article more objective please? If we are serious about creating a top-notch Wiki about AR Rahman, we must hold back from spewing laudatory froth. For an example of restraint and poise in writing, see Ilaiyaraaja. AppleJuggler (talk) 03:35, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] birth year of A R Rahman

i read from http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/ar_rahman#/track/theme_music that the birth year of ARR is 1967.

but this page says it is 1966.

which one is correct?

Kanthaa (talk) 19:44, 8 April 2008 (UTC)kanthaa, 8th april 2008

Can it be mentioned that the song "Chaiyya Chaiyya" by A. R. Rahman from Dil Se was used in the Hollywood film "Inside Man" by Spike Lee? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.95.30.172 (talk) 04:10, 23 May 2008 (UTC)