The story of cine Music - composer and composed

Tamil cinema has been blessed with several music directors, who have given soulful compositions that have survived across several decades. Going by my playlist my favorite music directors from Tamil are KV Mahadevan, MSV-Ramamoorthy, IR, Deva, ARR, Yuvan, Karthikraja, Haris, GV Prakash, Anirduh and couple of songs of Santosh Narayanan. While people generally talk about rise of a music director in association with fall of the incumbent legend, ex: IRR taking over MSV eventually to lose out to ARR, in my view, it is the fall and not as much as the rise that has contributed to the change in leadership. Music is a very niche skill and barring flash in the pan kind of hits, for some one to survive long in the industry, one should be literally and figuratively well versed. The person should be individually better composed for producing better compositions. Pretty soon, we may’ve algorithm’s that would create or code tunes based on a huge database of good sounds. Till the time, technology completely takes over the task of creating music, composing original tunes, is very much an art that requires a mind at peace as a bare minimal requirement. And each of the master composer listed here had seen an accelerated fall in their career that has coincided with their personal lives and issues. At his peak, MSV had almost regular contract kind of work coming from majority of leading directors of his time and IR had to be recommended hard by his friends and well wishers to even find a foot hold. But with his unbridled talent he started to eat into those that were once strong holds of MSV, who also witnessed personal upheavals and the result reflected on the songs as well. When ARR came into picture, the ego of IR was sky high and in fact couple of movies have been made on how his ego led to not just him being relegated but to the rise of ARR. Like IR, his sons be it Yuvan or Karthik gave some lilting numbers which had longevity written all over them. Just like the hit songs of IR that has no expiry, majority of Yuvan’s hits also had that quality of retaining freshness every time when they are played. Possibly his marital issues sidetracked Yuvan and he is yet to recover his lost touch. Karthik’s case is even weirder, and he never really took off from his dad’s lengthy shadows. Till ARR remained focused in his music, even the sounds that permeated his numbers, not just the rhythm and instrumentation, had a sense of being new every time when they are heard. In fact, many of my friends who are music lovers, used to amaze at their own discovery of a new sound every time they heard his song. But with his political muddling and diverging into multiple forums and institutions has reflected on his music as well. It has been a long while since he had any blockbuster album, considering the level he has set for himself. Deva, like similarly named composer of yesteryear Veda, had to bear the brunt of being labelled copy-cat musician, for his couple of his notable hits were straight lifts from English songs. My friends used to praise Deva for delivering low-cost music for English song cassettes were sold some around 120-125 rupees and tamil cassettes were a quarter of that rate. Deva dwelled a lot with “gana” songs which made him a household name and eventually his downfall. When Harris came on the scene he was mocked as, having run away with handful of tunes from ARR. Such was the craze for his songs that, while other struggled for a single hit song per album, he delivered album full of hits one after another. Again, the quality of sound in his songs give them a forever new and fresh feel. His fallout with his favorite directors, with whom he majorly collaborated, resulted in him slipping away from his own pedestal. Anirudh started with a bang and his first five albums were blockbuster hits. But his music never had that sense of clarity and clear sound which were omnipresent on IR and ARR hits. He gradually has ventured more into a rehash of hits hardly giving space for lyrics or the singer, relying solely on the “hook” beat. He may be the toast of the town now but only for so long. Sankar Narayanan is one music director, who has ultimately made the industry decide on the irrelevance of songs in movies. Such has been his scale of “experimentation” that, he liberalized playback singing to the extent of anyone with a voice can sing. And anything goes when it comes to composing songs if the outcome is something audible. We are witnessing a trend where major heroes will soon start opting for movies without songs to ensure a runtime of just over 2 hours. Unless the movie music industry finds way to redeem itself, all the so called “woods” of Indie cinema would be deforested off unwanted songs, which will be considered as extra luggage at best.