One man's rubbish is another man's treasure

I visted a local audio shop in KL, and started to talk with the sales lady, and I told her how rare it is to find A.R. Rahman's CDs nowadays. I told her the story of how I managed to find a copy of the "Thiruda Thiruda" Magnasound CD from a fleamarket. She told that her shop had ordered 15 copies of that CD combo with "Puthiya Mugam" back in 1995 when"Chor Chor" was released. They managed to sell 5 copies but they still had the remaining 10 copies until 2012 when they destroyed the CDs when they relocated their shop as they focused primarily on Hindi audio, and video. Oh my Kadavul!!! Why did the owner of the shop did that? I visited the shop a few times in 2012, and I never thought to ask about old Tamil CDs of A.R. Rahman as they only sold Bollywood collections. 

Such a missed opportunity - I told the sales lady - your boss could have made lots of money by selling his old collection on the Internet especially for A.R. Rahman CDs.

May Maadham & Musical Extravaganza

I managed to get the Pyramid CD of "May Maadham & Musical Extravaganza" - CD PYR 8218 for RM19.90 this week from a local audio shop. The sound quality is so much sharper, and clearer than the Aditya CD of "May Maadham". The instrumental tracks are the jewel of the CD. With this CD - I only need to complete 7 more of the Pyramid CDs of A.R. Rahman's releases:

• Roja
• Kizhakku Cheemaielea
• Fantasy
• Vandi Solai Chinraasu
• Kaadhalan
• Bombay
• Indira

A.R. Rahman Collection Inventory

My first purchase of A.R. Rahman's music was a cassette of "Bombay" released by Mani Osai in Malaysia in 1994 around Deepavali. I still remember I just finished my high school final exams (S.P.M.), and was on a long break waiting for the results that was released on 7th March 1995 (the day that A.R. Rahman was in Malaysia for the launching of the "Indira" soundtrack in Kuala Lumpur). I bought the "Bombay" cassette from the Hema shop in SS5, Kelana Jaya for RM5. Ever since then, I try my best to buy A.R. Rahman's cassettes, and CDs. The thing I regret is not to start my collection of the Pyramid CDs in the 1990s. By the time I started, the Pyramid CDs became very rare, and sought after among the millions of A.R. Rahman's fans across the world.

I've only started to compile the inventory of my small collection of A.R. Rahman's releases. Of course, with Internet, I'm able to collect the CDs I've wanted for a long time such as the Time Audio CD of "Rangeela" originally released in 1995. The link below contains the partial inventory of my current collection which I will continue to update whenever I could.

A.R. Rahman Inventory as of 20 April 2014

If your wishlist CD is in the list, and you would like to purchase it - please do let me know. I might be willing to let a CD go if another fan really wants it. I believe that all of us are only temporary passengers in this world, and I very well know the feeling when we find what we have been looking for such a long time - it's better for us fans to share what we can among ourselves.

And A.R. Rahman will be here live in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on 26th April 2014... To be continued...

Bombay CD... Bombay CD... Every Where But Not an Original to Buy

I went to Lebuh Ampang today on one of my way regular visits to the audio shops there during the weekend. As I reached the Melody shop, I noticed that they put up a discount booth selling Hindi CDs. Naturally, I was curious, maybe they are selling A.R. Rahman CDs. As I was browsing through the stack of CDs, I noticed that almost all the CDs were pirated copies but I noticed the U.K. edition of Music India/PolyGram's "Bombay" CD among the stack of CDs - not only 1 copy but 7 of them. I remembered the catalogue number for this CD to be CDF 136 - which matches exactly the number on the CDs on sale there. The condition of the CD booklet, and the tray insert for the "Bombay" CDs was poor - the papers stuck to the jewel case due to moisture. By removing the inserts, I would be definitely be tearing the inserts. 

There was also the pirated CD copy of "Swades" with catalogue number SHCD 1/3574 - of which I already have a copy of (I bought the copy accidentally in 2004 or 2005). I knew the "Swades" CD was pirated but the "Bombay" CD looked original. I did not bother to open the jewel case to check the CD. The audio shop seller was selling 15 CDs for RM10 (around RM0.67 per CD). I thought to myself - that's a great bargain even for what might or might not be original "Bombay" CDs (I really thought they were original CDs - they looked original to my naked eyes). 

I bought all the 7 copies of the "Bombay" CDs, 2 copies of "Swades" CDs, and 6 other Hindi CDs (including a Pyramid Hindi CD). Once I reached home, I removed all the "Bombay" discs from the jewel cases, and placed them on separate DVD keep cases. One of the jewel case did not have the disc - so I had 6 "Bombay" discs. From my first impression, the disc appeared to be original - the print design on the disc was the same as I remembered from the original "Bombay" CD that I had but the print color of the logo on the disc is of orange color rather than red.

At this point, my suspicion was aroused. I quickly compared the insert, and disc to the original ones I had. The pirates have done an extremely good job of reproducing the CD. An average buyer will not notice the minute details of the original copy of "Bombay" CD that are missing on the pirated copy.

Just imagine the care, and detail the pirates took to reproduce the original "Bombay" CD painstakingly to cheat the average buyer. I guess the fake CDs were produced in 1995 when "Bombay" was released to exploit the success of both the movie, and the soundtrack. I will scan a copy of the pirated copy of the "Bombay" CD very soon.