Looking for Miracles

If you were wary when you first heard the news that AR Rahman was teaming up with Mick Jagger,Dave Stewart,Damien Marley,and Joss Stone to form a ‘super band’ called Super Heavy,you’re probably not alone. Given Jagger’s inability to produce any work of note away from the Rolling Stones,and the fact that Stewart stopped being a significant name since the Eurythmics dissolved in 1990,one didn’t really expect fireworks. There was also some worry expressed in music circles about how the music would sound with so many disparate styles coming together from Stone’s R&B to Marley’s reggae tunes and Rahman’s more ambiguous ‘world music’. And the biggest question of all was: what role can one expect heavyweight Jagger to play?

But all those fears may yet be unfounded. The group’s first single,Miracle Worker,doesn’t seem so bad after all. It works a traditional reggae beat,with fairly conventional lyrics about the lover being a miracle worker and a surgeon of love. Stone’s vocals are strong and carry the song through and Marley — the youngest son of the legendary Bob Marley and a three-time Grammy award winner in his own right — is a good match for her. Jagger himself pops up only occasionally to growl out some truly weird lyrics: “my loving laser will regenerate your heart/ no need for anaesthetics,I’ll go check your charts/ I will reshape you,recast you from the mold/ a brand new beautiful woman will blossom from the old”. He leaves most of the heavy work to his younger colleagues,although that may not hold true for the rest of the album. In this particular song itself,Stewart and Rahman don’t really stand out. But the indications seem to be there that the next few tracks will be as different from each other,as the musicians themselves. So there’s still some chance that Rahman,at least,will produce something we can all be proud of.